Band on the run

I have lost track of the amount of weeks we had been training for. All I knew was that the day was quickly approaching.

When I first started running I didn't think it was possible for me to run 5k. I had seen my Mom run many races going all the way up to  marathon and I never thought it would be possible for me to run a race with her. But I did. And it felt so great!

I took this challenge on not only for myself, but for my children as well. And I am so glad that my son was able to see that hard work does pay off and if you set a goal you can achieve it.

The day of the race I was so nervous. My daughter was so nice that morning that she woke me up at 5:45am, giving me a few hours to get my nerves running high. At 8:00am we made our way down to the race. We turned the corner and the crowd, oh my goodness the crowd! There were over a thousand people there and my nerves shot into overdrive!

Stay calm, I told myself and don't compare. We were running the 5k, but there was also a 10k and half marathon being run, so there was some super athletes there and I had to keep telling myself that everyone started somewhere and this is my start.

We watched as the half marathoners and the 10k runners took off and it was finally our time to start. We walked down to the start line and stood in the huge crowd of runners shoulder to shoulder ready to go. Nervous energy surrounded me. And the feeling of being in that crowd and getting ready to run is unexplainable and different for each person, but it was a great feeling. I made sure I was on the one side so I could high five my son as we went by.

And then we were off.

We were met with a giant hill right off the start, but just remember hills are your friends! We turned the corner and saw a glorious sight, downhill! But it wouldn't last long as the whole first half of the race was up hill. We reached the top of the last hill and saw the water station and I knew that we were halfway done. And I was feeling ok. Then we heard someone say, it's all downhill from here! Just what I needed to hear to keep me going. We reached kilometer 4 and my Mom asked "do you want to take your walk", I said "no lets run the last kilometer." She asked "are you sure" and I said "yes." We finally reached the bridge and I could see the finish was coming up. We turned the final corner and I looked at my Mom and asked "are you ready?" She said "go for it" and I ran it straight in to the finish and it felt amazing.

We didn't finish first and we didn't finish last, the point is that we finished. And to be exact we finished in 469th and 470th place out of 572 runners in the 5k race. The course was a lot more challenging then I was expecting. We didn't do a lot of hill training, but we still came out alive!

After the race my Mother asked me "are you going to keep running?"

I replied "of course!"

I was already thinking of our next race to do.