The story of the 5k....which will be long and drawn out. :)

Lets see how this all started. During the summer I told Josh I wanted to run a 5k. The first item on my bucket list (whole other blog post!). So we found a running plan to help us achieve this goal. We were SO dedicated. We were running every other day and following our plan. Josh played soccer growing up and has always been running. I have never been a runner. I don't classify myself as one now. Anyway. We trained for 12+ weeks. Dedicated. THEN....I began the whole sick thing which really affected my energy since I wasn't able to eat hardly anything. So for that month, our running became non-existent. Then I feel better- YAY!- and for a couple weeks we are enjoying no sickness and having the "we need to run" comments almost daily. When we realized earlier this week that our Oct. 1 race at the Harvest Festival in Springfield was THIS weekend we got in high gear. We ran 3 times that week. :) Fast forward to night before the race. I had our running gear, socks, heart monitor, chest strap, you name it, all laid out in a nice pile. I even asked my fantastic marathon runner friend Justin for some tips. Main thing...try not to do anything different during the day. Eat something good early, dress correctly, etc. Turns out by the end of the day, I had done the exact opposite of his good advice (not what I wanted). We got in bed at 11. By 1:30am I hadn't slept yet (consequently because of my tossing/turning/flopping...neither did Josh). Then the sickness started. I think it was what I had for dinner. It was horrid. Once it passed, we got 3 hours of good sleep and hello 6 am. I still didn't feel good. But we were DETERMINED to do this race. So we dressed, got in the car and drove about an hour and half to the race. Did I mention it was in the low 40's????? The whole ride there I tried to eat one piece of toast with some peanut butter. It did not happen. So in addition to our no sleep, I still didn't feel great and we had no fuel to do this. Anywho....we line up on the street and hear the "on your mark....get set....go!" (i have to be honest. I was a little disappointed they didn't shoot a gun to get us started!) And then everyone starts running! I FREAKED! I know, I know....I expected this to happen. BUT....we always start out with two minutes of a walking and then start. I do not do well out of routine! But my fantastic husband was there to encourage and set the pace and we ran our longest amount of time (doubled) than we had ran before. YAY! It was cold. It was harder to focus on breathing and I was weirded out about sucking in all the cold air, my chest burning, etc. But it didn't happen and I was excited. I told Josh i was a little disappointed that no one was standing on the sides cheering. Although there was one lady standing in her door in her house coat. Oh and the little girl who wouldn't wave at me. Oh well. So we just did our thing until we are in the home stretch and then....CHEERING!! wahoo!! Josh just grinned and said, "There ya go!" So we kicked it in high gear and floored the last part of it. Our time for 3.1 miles........48 minutes and 22 seconds. We were so excited! The longest we had ran in the past several months was 2.5 miles and it took us 45 minutes. We achieved a lot of goals during this race and improved our time. It was awesome. I am so thankful for my awesome husband. He could have had finished the race much earlier and had a better time but instead, he stuck with me. He's awesome. He is such an encouragement. He is the perfect running partner. :) So there you go. Afterwards, we walked around the festival, had some hot chocolate. We were hungry. We felt great. We had lunch at a new pizza place in Danville (which was fantastic). Thought we would crash when we got home. Instead, had a very productive day. Cleaned the whole house, etc. So it was awesome. Here are pics of our day....proudest moments.....getting a number to put on my shirt and finishing the race.....in the middle. Not first. Not last. :) First 5k Down! WOOHOO!! FUn pics of our day!