My first 5k!

Happy Green Day! I was lucky enough to spend St. Patty’s Weekend in Chicago with two of my lovely peeps, Jules and Mel!

One of our plans for the weekend was to participate in the St. Patty’s Day 5km run/walk on the lake in Chi-town. Unfortunately, as I mentioned in my last post, I’ve been a little injured but I still wanted to participate. I made a deal with myself to honour my body and run/walk the race. I also had a good talk with a friend, who is an experienced runner, who advised me to take walk breaks from the very beginning and go at a slower pace. I’m very competitive with myself so I knew taking it slow and walking a lot would be hard, to hold myself accountable I told everyone I knew that I was going to run/walk. The most important thing was to NOT injure myself and with that off we went!

The morning of the run we were pretty tired but got out of bed and started to get ready anyway. Wanting to legitimately be able to wear my race shirt helped get me up. To go with the race theme I got my green on, including greenish Olympic knee socks… Funny story, in an effort to stay warm I pulled my Wunder Under capris a far down as they would go and pulled my socks up. Well, as I started to run my pants kept sliding down! I was wondering what the heck was going on until I realized my socks were pulling them down so I un-tucked them a bit, OOPS! Sorry to anyone running around me at that point!! LOL

I also fueled with a Glo bar.

It was FREEZING outside, being by the lake didn’t help matters. We huddled in the car until 10 minutes before the race when we were the picture of insanity (frozen and tired) but off we went.

Isn’t the cityscape gorgeous?! I ♥ Chicago.

It was great to cross the starting line with Jules. Right at the start my ‘bad’ knee felt tight. For a split second I thought I’d have to walk the whole thing but I think it was just stiff from the cold and it loosened right up.

I was so pumped to run that every time I would switch from walking to running I would take off and have to slow myself down. I believe I was running sub 6:00 min/km and eventually I started pacing myself with slower runners.

Since this was my first race I wasn’t sure if I would stick out by taking walking breaks but I was pleased to see that others were walk/running and that I was still passing a lot of people.

My body felt great until 2.5 miles in when my hip started to feel sore. This was the hardest and best part of the race for me, I felt awesome except for my hip, and I really wanted to sprint to the end but thought it would be better to take 2 extra walking breaks. At this point the volunteers and runners who had already finished were cheering us on an all I wanted to do was GO and I was at the finish line before I knew it!

I must admit I got a teeny bit misty eyed at the finish. A few years ago I was recovering from knee surgery and giving up skating because one more fall and my doctor thought I’d end up with a knee replacement. Needless to say running was not on my radar, forget running a race. I was so pumped to finish and I’m proud of my 38 minute time. I know it’s not a fast time but that’s ok, I know I can run faster and  I had such a great time anyway.

The best part is my body feels great, no knee or groin pain and only a bit of hip pain.  As I crossed the finish line I wanted  run it again, I can’t believe how fast the race went by! Instead I picked up my official time, a green bagel, a nanner and headed back to meet Jules on her way to the finish line.

Happy and much warmer girls post-race!

with our “medals”

Yes, I ran with my camel bak. I didn’t really need it but I’m used to running with water and it was handy for a few sips.

I’m now officially addicted to racing and have been looking up races I can enter. I’m can’t wait to run full out next time!

 

 

I’ll be back tomorrow with the DE.LICIOUS eats from my trip!

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