#28 participating in a 5K race

i'd like to call this post "running in a 5K race," but who am i kidding? this post should technically be "slowly jogging in a 5K race," but i decided to be diplomatic for myself. 


regent university, where i work and jeff attends, sponsored the neptune 8K run, and this year they added a 5K option. since i have not run consistently since approximately high school ago, i decided i should be practical and go with the 5K option. my hope was that the excitement of the race and the pleasing sense of accomplishment would lure me into a desire to run often in the future. 


spoiler alert: nope.  


friday night, i went to bed feeling nervous and excited and a general sense of dread. i tossed and turned for much of the night, and eventually fell asleep. i dreamt that jeff and i had a tiny baby, but we were utterly unprepared for it. no one had thrown us a shower or anything and we had to borrow an old car seat from a friend to lug the kid home after we'd left it at the hospital for a few days. we put it in a room and left it in there for a couple hours, and when we reopened the door, that tiny pink baby was running around the room like a maniacal, naked pygmy. i peeked in the borrowed car seat and saw a diaper that was somehow full, like a wee coffee cup of nasty. and then i woke up. horrified. i mean, you readers are currently horrified, so you can only imagine what i felt. and memories of that stupid baby kept me awake for much of the remainder of the night.


of course, the night was short because they require you to wake up before dawn for these races. i woke up and felt a little crick in my back, which is never a good sign for me. i considered not showing up to the race, but i knew my sister was planning on cheering me on and for some reason that made me want to go. 


jeff and i parked about a mile away from the race start by accident, but i arrived with three minutes to spare. i strapped the chip on my ankle and headed to the start. i honestly was unsure for a whole minute as to which way we were running since the herd was just milling about near the start, but then the announcer said to get ready and a horn blasted and away we went in a clear direction. i started jogging, dodging people left and right. 


there's not much to say about the actual race, except that i think it's a very odd practice to attempt to drink while jogging and then throw the paper cup violently to the ground. i opted instead to toss most of the water in my face, choke on any that happened to make it into my mouth, and daintily drop the cup to the side of the road. also, i repeated "slow and steady wins the race" to myself the entire 5K, but it turns out aesop is a liar. somewhere out there is a smug little hare with a shiny new medal. 


in conclusion, i ended up finishing in just over 31 minutes (that's two minutes worse than the trial i had done four days earlier) and i came in 16th place. in my age bracket. for the women. impressive, right? no? well. join me in blaming the nightmare baby.


here's a picture of me with some of the girls in my office (and one girl who is the roommate of a girl in my office), all of whom participated in a race that day too: