Week 5: Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure 5k

Week 5 sucked.

Well...let me start over. Week 5 started out great! Throughout my training runs during the week I managed to keep a steady pace and shave almost 2 minutes off my regular time. And these were done with little to no complaining which was a HUGE accomplishment for me. I'm sure Coach Jim really appreciated the few days that I didn't bitch and moan about one thing or another.
(You're welcome, honey.)

And then....

Saturday came.

Saturday was the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure 5k. I have done this 5k several times but I've never actually run it for several reasons.

1. I was chunky.
2. I was lazy.
3. I was (probably) hung over
4. I was a chunky hung over lazy person who just wanted to go to back to bed.

But alas, in my quest to become a super awesome runner, I have to actually run this 5k. Go fig.

One of the reasons it was so hard to run this 5k was the amount of people there. I think at one point I heard an announcer say there were an estimated 20,000 in attendance. That's an extraordinary large amount of people. And that's awesome! This is a great event and its for a great cause. But seriously...how in the hell do you run a race with 19,999 other people?? Solution: get in the front of the starting line and just haul ass in front of everyone!
Ummmm....no, that still didn't work.
Everyone took off of that starting line like tons of pink bats outta hell and I was still just trying to find my footing in all the madness. I couldn't really focus much on my running in the beginning because I was mostly just making the motion to make it look like I was running but really I was just trying not to get trampled. Then it was a matter of maneuvering around strollers, kids, dogs and old people.
Oh! And at one point, the road had a bump that I swear came out of nowhere and I almost face planted. Funny for others to watch, I'm sure. But not so much for me.
Anyway...once I was able to get through the crowd and into a somewhat decent area to run in, I could finally focus on what I was doing. But that still didn't help. My heart rate was out of control and I felt like my legs weighed about 20 lbs each. I had to walk several times and just could not keep a consistent pace. I was frustrated with myself and wanted to just run faster. I felt like I was back at square one and got a little discouraged to think about how far I still have to go. Needless to say...the entire race was like that.

Coach Jim says sometimes you just have a bad run. I can definitely say that's true.
Considering how many people were there and how many times I had to walk, my time wasn't too bad. It was only 2 minutes longer than the previous 5k. So in normal, sensible-person reality, that's great! I should be happy! But I'm a little bit crazy and I can definitely admit that I'm too hard on myself most times.
Overall, I should be proud of the work I did.

But I certainly made up for my lack of complaining during the week with lots of whining in those few minutes of the race.

I also had a few people comment on our cute shirts so I wanted to give a shout out to Mandi!
These shirts were for her team The Elemonators. She posts a blog about her battle with breast cancer and she's a very strong chica for everything she has to go through. We were definitely proud to rock those shirts.
Check it out

http://www.darngoodlemonade.com/

We are on our way to San Francisco this week so I will be sure to update you on that race when we get back