The idea of doing this run was actually my sister Sarah's. She's been trying to get healthy lately, and she challenged me a few months ago to join her in a 5K. At the time, I was training for the big swim, but December felt far away, so I agreed.
As I've mentioned in previous blogs, my own fitness regiment has deteriorated to near nothingness. It has been weeks since the last time I got a real sweat going during a workout and months since I got two good workouts in the same week. If that doesn't explain why I haven't lost much weight since the swim...your future as a private detective does not look bright.
Still, a deal's a deal, so even though I felt completely unprepared, I stuck to the plan. Saturday morning, Sarah and I made our way to the Pepper Creek Trail where we registered and got our goodie bags. Then, promptly at 9, we got in line at the start and waited for the starting bell.
Looking around at the crowd of runners, Sarah and I felt pretty good. There were people who looked as out of shape as we felt, senior citizens, parents with small children (even parents pushing small children in strollers). We suddenly felt like we might not be the last people to cross the finish line (assuming our survival).
All of our perceptions were thrown to the wolves, though, as the race got started. Now I know how cows feel as they filter through with shoot. All these bodies shooting past us at warp speed. Within minutes, we found ourselves jogging in a much smaller group, the non-hardcores, if you will. That's pretty much where we stayed for the rest of the run, lots of folks in front of us...behind us, not as much.
That was fine by me, though. As I kept telling Sarah, this was each of our first ever 5K, and we weren't in it to win. We just wanted to finish on our own terms, no walking.
To be completely honest, it wasn't that bad. The hardest part of the entire run was a muddy patch that temporarily left my sneakers weighing an extra 2 pounds each. As we approached the finish line, though, I realized I still had plenty of juice. With Sarah's permission, I broke off and ran the last 20 or 30 yards. I was truly surprised to not be in more pain.
Saturday night, however, the pain came, and it came angry. I swear I had sore muscles inside my knee. I had grand plans for the rest of my day. There were dreams of cleaning the house, doing laundry, perhaps doing a little Christmas shopping. Didn't happen. Instead, the rest of my day consisted of laying on the couch watching television, taking short breaks occasionally to go to the bathroom or complain about my agony.
This morning, I got to look at the results of the race. It makes it harder to feel good about having finished in 181st place out of 208 runners. That puts me in the bottom 13% of the field. My total time was 42:15, putting my pace at a blistering 13:38 per mile.
Overall, I walk away from this experience with mixed feelings. I finished the race without walking, sure, but I can't help but think about how much better I could have performed had I really trained for it. Much to my chagrin, the Jingle Bell Fun Run may have wet my whistle for future runs. I truly believe that with a few months of preparation, I could easily shave 7 to 10 minutes off of my time.
God help me, did I just become a runner?
