Running the Race and a Birthday

The day marking the start of my 23rd year of life (I had to think for a sec how old I'd turned) came and went Saturday without much ado. I suppose I'm getting old now and since I'm a mom, birthdays aren't going to matter anymore. I DID do something exciting that morning, got up early and ran the Chena River Run 5k. I'm hoping to run the Midnight Sun Run 10k at the end of June, so I'm trying to get serious about training for it, since I want to do well. Maybe even beat my personal record of 1:16:45.

I finished the 5k in 0:34:47, which definitely wasn't bad considering I just started really training the Monday preceding the race. I am rather disappointed though that I'm all the way at the beginning again with running. The race was at least good motivation to keep it up.

It started out as a beautiful morning despite the weather prediction of 52 degrees and raining. Scott burned a "motivational" CD for me to listen to on the way to the race. It is officially my favorite CD at the moment. The first song was "Stayin' Alive." Very helpful.

I was at the starting line with two friends who've been running a bit longer than I have, so I expected them to lose me after about the first mile or so. As it turns out, I overestimated my abilities. They lost me within about 20 seconds. I was even more discouraged when I passed the first mile, and someone was calling out first mile times. Mine? 10:53. I must have gotten frustrated and pushed harder somehow or another, because I finished better than I thought I would. It was still quite frustrating though.

When I was in sight of the finish line and saw the clock read 0:34:23, I booked it, trying not to break 35 minutes. All-in-all, I was pretty happy with the finish, although it's Monday and my muscles are still sore. So sad.

The rest of the day after that was rather anti-climactic after such an exciting start. We DID go out to dinner though, at a nice place with delicious food and renowned in Fairbanks for their desserts.

And my birthday gift? A pair of chickens to a third-world country. I couldn't have asked for a better present. :)