First 5K

Picture this, a calm sleeping body nestled in a sea of blankets. All is well with the world. BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP!!!!! The impending feeling of death and misery ensues. I begrudgingly get out of my warm bed at 4:30am to get ready for my race. My poor friends are sharing similar fates in their homes at about the same time. I do feel groggy, but semi-excited as I get all of my gear together, get dressed, and pull my water bottles out of the fridge. My friends arrive at my house at 5:25am so that we can trek to Reliant Park/Stadium for the Running of the Bulls 5k. Leah has been through several running races, but it is mine and Kat's first 5K and running event. On the way there Leah falls in and out of sleep while Kat and I make snarky comments about a myriad of subjects, basically anything to keep me awake. I even remember taking a sharp curve that woke Leah up (she sleepily told me so and apparently doesn't remember it). We land around 6:30 to pick up our packets (koozie and ugly shirt) and meet a few other members of our running group and our coach. When we got our bib numbers, we found that Kat had been graced with the number 666. This pretty much made our day. We warmed up around the parking lot and did a few drills full of awesome things like butt-kicks and high-kneed skipping.

There were probably about 3500 people doing the run/walk and we felt like we waited an eternity to start. Almost half of the participants broke a running etiquette rule by wearing their race shirt that they got for this race, during the race! This is not only tacky, it's just something you don't do because you haven't finished yet so it's like you didn't earn it. Also, they needed to do a better job of separating the walkers from the runners. Out of courtesy, we went to the back because we are slower, however, we were in a sea of walkers, and quite a few of them were mixed in the middle and front with the runners. This gets to be frustrating because even though we are going slowly, we still had to go around and between walkers. It was also pretty humid and warm during the race so we were sweating like crazy! I was so salty it was unreal. Overall, it was actually a good run. Leah was ahead of us for most of the race, but we all three managed to finish in under 50 minutes.

My favorite part was that after the race my coach, a team member, and all three of us went to breakfast together. It was really nice to get to know them better and not have to stand in the longest food line ever. This was a really good experience and I can't wait to sign up for my next race!