Small Town 5K

This morning was my second 5K!

It was a local race put on my gym - Hampshire Wellness & Fitness Center - to benefit the Relay for Life.  It was much different from my first 5K back in April.  The major difference was the size of the race!  My first 5K had around 1000 runners, I think.  This was just a little race - only about 50ish, I'd say.  It was nice because there were a lot of familiar faces.  Most of the trainers that I've been working with were running and also several of the people I work out along side at the gym.  I was a bit worried at first because I'm a slow runner and with so few people, I thought I'd be last and be very lonely out on the course.  I sucked it up and got out there anyway!

Pre-race Photo

 I pretty much knew that the course would be somewhat hilly.  Being that I live in the heart of Appalachia, there's no getting around the hills.  Still, I was completely unprepared for some of the hills and walked most of them.  I need to start running with a camera so I can take pictures of my runs - I don't know that I would have believed these hills if I hadn't seen them myself! I managed to finish in 37:59, though!  Which is almost a minute faster than my first 5K!  I'm pretty proud of that considering the hills.

Coming to the finish line

There were several points where I thought I was going to just pass out.  About half-way through (maybe even less), I abandoned my hope of a PR and decided that I just wanted to finish it.  I must be doing something right because not only did I finish, I PR'ed it!!

I'm also pretty impressed with myself because I was the biggest female runner!  There was also a 5K walk, so I wasn't the only plus sized girl out there.  It is empowering to be a runner my size and still not finish last (even if there were only a couple other runners behind me!)

Post-race Photo :)

At the end of the race, I said "Never again" to this race (or any others this close to home, for that matter), but I know myself.  I will be out here again next year just to prove to myself how much better I can do.  I'll also know just how many hills to be prepared for.

Now back to 10K training - 5 weeks to go!