6K

Saturday morning I did my first race ever. Back in July one of my friends, Andrea, came to visit and I told her that I had set the goal to get in shape and do a 5K with Jeff next summer. She has done several races before and convinced me that I should try to do one sooner so I had a more immediate goal. After searching online, I found the Wasatch Woman Love Your Body race. It was a 6K run/walk (yes, 6K...I guess the route ended up being about 3.72 miles so they couldn't call it a 5K). I liked the idea of a run/walk because I knew that there was no way I could get in good enough shape to run the whole thing in just a few months.

So, as I mentioned in a previous post, I have been trying to run the past few months. In the process I have dropped 18 pounds...but there is so much more work I have to do to get to where I want to be.

I invited one of my best friends, Molli, to come do the race with me. She has been such an inspiration to me... over the past year she has worked hard to loose 100 pounds! She did her first 5K earlier this year and loved it. I am sure both she and Andrea were sick of me texting them all of the time about running and how I thought I couldn't do it, but they were both such an encouragement to me. When I signed up for the race, I didn't know how big it was: about 1800 women. It was crazy to run in a crowd that big. I spent the first part of the race feeling winded...but the first mile is always the hardest for me. At about the halfway point I started to feel better and just kept running and running. I wish I knew how far I went without stopping but they didn't have mile markers out. Anyways, at about the last 1/2 mile I saw Molli running back against the crowd. She had already finished and had come back to run in with me. It was awesome to run over the Finish Line with her and see Jeff and the boys waiting there for me! I did the race in 57 minutes and 6 seconds, averaging a 15.17 minute mile. I accomplished my goal of doing it in under an hour!