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Monday Update: 12/14/09

So, Amy and I completed our first 5K without incident last Saturday. It was a cold, cold morning…but we pulled through! I woke up early Saturday morning and felt a little bit excited about the run…wondering what it would be like, how we would do, how many people would be there…so many questions. Amy and I got our packets of info and readied ourselves for the race inside West Des Moines City Hall. Looking around at the variety of runners, I felt much more at ease. There were clearly some serious runners…one guy was even wearing SHORTS, but there were also groups of walkers, and friends dressed up in their holiday gear…it was very laid back and the atmosphere was upbeat and relaxed.

The parks and rec guy made a few announcements…’Runners….blah, blah, blah’ Runners. I giggled…he said runners. Me…in a group of …runners. Where am I? Who am I? Finally we lined up and started the race…one of the local TV stations captured it on camera and we have video evidence of the running captured on our DVR. (I’m sure I’ll be playing it for everyone at Christmas! My 2 seconds of glory!)

As we started running, we were quickly passed by the much more serious runners…but we kept our pace steady and made our way down the trail. They had to change the course of the race, because of the snow storm, so the route was now an out and back course…and it didn’t take us long to realize we were heading downhill…for quite a while. You KNOW what that means…we’d be running uphill on the way back! FUN! We had planned to run 5 minute intervals, with 2 minute walk breaks in between. We ended up running the first 10 minutes, then after that I quickly lost track. We had to walk a few more times than planned, but overall I felt good about how we were doing. We got a lot of way to go’s and other words of encouragement from the cops at the intersections and other runners as they passed us on their way back to the finish. Everyone was having fun and I couldn’t help it…I actually enjoyed it! Who’d have thought? Surely not me. I had a great time…it was a good challenge, but I never felt like I couldn’t finish…or that I wasn’t adequately prepared. All these weeks of training, I felt great. I’m pretty sure I might have had a silly grin on my face the whole time. The path was slushy and slippery in places from the snow, but we managed not to fall…another huge victory, in my opinion (especially since I fell on my own driveway this morning…but I digress). Not dying, not falling, not finishing last…we pretty much achieved all my goals!! And as we rounded the corner for the finish line and could see Blake and Matt waiting for us, I couldn’t help but swell a bit with pride. Here I was…running…finishing my first race. Matt wasn’t there to see us take off, but seeing him there waiting for us at the end meant so much to me. He snapped a few quick pictures of us running by and then Blake took more as we recovered. I felt exhilarated…accomplished…proud. I’m so glad we did it. It was good for us to gage where we are with our training and gave me the confidence to keep going with the training. I’m actually look forward to running in another race in the coming months! Weird, I know.

After hugging goodbye and going our separate ways, Matt and I headed home for a nice, lazy Saturday. It was great! We watched some Christmas movies, a little football, and just relaxed the day away. Sunday was another quiet day around the house. I made more Christmas cookies while Matt searched online for more recipes for me to make. I’m busy this week getting all my ducks in a row for the upcoming Christmas get togethers and am really looking forward to them all.

I’m guessing I probably won’t get a chance to post again until after Christmas – please know that we wish you all the best this Christmas season…filled with wonderful times spent with family and friends. We are very blessed – and are so thankful for each of you and the special parts you play in our lives. We look ahead to 2010 to be another year of good things! Merry, Merry Christmas!!!

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