Better late than never

Just realized that I didn't ever do the blog post I was intending to do months ago...about the day I ran 5 K!

I did mention that I started running, though. Did any of you actually believe me that I'd complete my goals? I know I wasn't so sure. As I said before, I started running while we were living at camp. My friend and I trained every other day (ok...for the MOST part) and on some painfully long gravel hills. All of which were uphill. I continued my training once we moved in with Mitch's parents and his mom and I would sometimes go for runs together. I was pretty sure I had been running 5k already until one day I looked at my routes and realized I had only been doing about 4.2. Killer! I thought I was doing SO well and it turned out that I hit my exhaustion point long before I was supposed to finish. The other problem was that I didn't realize this until the week before the run.

The run I trained for was the children's hospital fundraising efforts. I heard about it in the summer and after experiencing first hand how hard it is to not have proper facilities in your home town, I felt it was extremely important to support the cause however I could. I also really felt like doing this run was for Tyler. I know it didn't directly benefit him at all, but as I pushed myself as I ran each time I remembered how much pain he had gone through and I knew that I could push myself to do this run for him. Maybe that doesn't make sense to anyone but me...but that's ok. It doesn't have to.

The run was supposed to start at 7 (um...I think? or 8? I don't remember now). It was at the end of September, so you'd think the temperature would be mild. Yeah...except when it decides to be heat stroke season and we were above 20 by 7ish. It was SO hot. I was nervous like crazy because I'd never actually finished five full kilometers before. Aside from me, Mitch, his sister, his parents, and our friends Jeff and Jen ran with us. They are all more seasoned runners and went ahead of me pretty quickly. It was...the longest 41 minutes of my life, but I ran the full five. Yep, ran the whole thing. Pride intended.

I still think back and can't quite believe I did it. Mostly because I haven't run a step since that race. Found out the week later that I was pregnant and my body warns to kill me if I even think of running, so I'll hang up my shoes until later. But I did. Mitch had finished long before me and came back to run the last leg with me. I looked up and saw Tyler waiting for me at the finish line and bawled the whole last 5 minutes. It may have looked like it was from sheer exhaustion, but it really was just out of thankfulness that I have my little boy around to run for, with, around, and beside.