C25K

My Couch to 5K journey has officially ended for the year. What is supposed to be a 9 week program, I managed to stretch into a nearly 17 week endeavor. I'm a bit surprised that I finished, but not at all surprised it took me so long. I am not a runner. I have never been remotely fast and I have never found running to come easy. But I needed to do something to start getting my body going in the right direction and running is free. Thankfully, I've had friends running with me along the way. I would never have gone running the second day if Trisha hadn't been pushing me a long. Though we did have some moments of slacking, and we don't really make compatible runners we made a great team. Having a partner made all the difference for me. Signing up for a race is also good motivation. I did two races during my C25K journey. In September I ran the Pumpkin Festival 2 Mile race "with" Trisha and Megan. That was my first race ever and it was pretty awful. I was terribly sick with a cold/sinus infection and I had barely any sleep the night before thanks to my 10 year reunion and my sickness. I also foolishly tried to stay on pace with Megan and Trisha. I lasted around a mile and then fell back. It was only two miles but it felt like an eternity. But I did it. I finished without walking and completed my first race ever. Since my goal was a 5K, not 2 miles I looked around for another race to sign up for. I heard about one in Palatine that our former church was having and thought it would be fun to go up for the weekend and run with some of my Palatine friends. Of course for this race I was recovering from having a stomach virus two nights previous and had almost no food in my system. I wasn't even sure I was going to run it, but I drove up Friday night and got a good nights sleep. Thankfully, I woke up Saturday morning feeling alright though still not hungry. My goal was to finish without walking and hopefully be under 40 minutes. Chanda stuck with me, even though I slowed her down and we finished in 37:21, my best time ever. It was a fun-ish time being with old friends and seeing a lot of people I hadn't seen since we moved. I only add the "ish" on fun because we were running and I'm not nearly ready to call such an activity fun. So until next year. I will try not to return completely to the couch, but I'm hanging up my running shoes until spring.