Race Day

  In my last post I talked about possibly running a 5k (3.1 miles). Well, the race day was yesterday BUT because I didn't get a chance to train the way I wanted to and was sick for a good part of the previous week, I chickened out of doing it. What I did do however, was sign up to be a volunteer- hence the T-shirt and bib number (they gave us one so we could participate in the raffle). The race was the Dr. Richard Sarkin Memorial Run/Walk in honor of Dr. Sarkin who was a Pediatrician in Western New York.

 I came up with a whole lot of reasons why I shouldn't/couldn't run the 5k- I think it was mostly anxiety because it would have been my first. In addition, I have never been to an actual race before. Thankfully, I read in someone's blog post a few days ago that a good way to familiarize yourself with the process is to be a volunteer and so that's what I did. Overall, I had a blast! My job was to stop traffic in the area that I was assigned along with one of my classmates when the runners came through. Thankfully there was also a cop there because those people were not trying to listen to us. A few of my classmates ran the race and it was fun to encourage them and the other runners along as they passed us. One thing that stood out for me was how appreciative the runners were as they were passing by. Many of them thanked us and I thought that was really nice - something to keep in mind for all of you race runners out there :-). My classmate who I was with and I got to know each other better and talked about our interests in running. It turns out that she was using Couch-to-5k as well! While she is more ambitious than I am and hopes to run a marathon in the future, maybe next spring we can be running buddies.

When I got home I was so inspired and realized that I really could have run the 5k that day. There wasn't much to it. So, I got on the treadmill in hopes of redeeming myself and close to an hour later.....

... my 5k was done! 3.1 miles in 51:36 minutes. Not bad considering that I haven't been running seriously for over 2 months. I look forward to running an actual race (next spring maybe... it's getting too cold for ME to run outside). And the moral of the story... if there is something that you really want to do, volunteering is a great way to familiarize yourself with the process and also inspire you to make it happen!