Memorial Day 5K Complete!

This morning I completed my second 5K and it was a REAL 5K! Streets were closed and there were a lot of runners- REAL RUNNERS! I'd say at least about 2000 participants or so. It was the "American Heroes" run at the Ballpark in Arlington. Camera crews were there, about 5 branches of the military and we even had an Apache Fighter Helicopter fly-over and landing. It was great!

The course was much harder and the sun was out and gleaming. It was beautiful though. When I turned the first curve I saw a sea of people in front of me running and I thought wow this is really beautiful. I should have started doing this years ago! I felt wonderful and accomplished. I'm finally doing something I always wanted to do, something that use to intimidate me. I kept a pretty good pace through-out the race and I sprinted all the hills which really helped my time.

When I made it around the last bend I had one more hill to the finish line. I was getting mentally prepared to sprint in like 45 seconds and all of a sudden I see my husband coming back for me again. He ran beside me clapping and saying words of encouragement I'm sure but I had my iPod on and couldn't hear him. Once I saw the final hill I took off in a sprint. I could see the finish line before me and I saw the clock. I ran quickly but lost a bit of steam right before the finish line but I pushed it a little more. I finished in 38.56 minutes, my fastest official group run time (last one was 42.43)!!! I still have a looooooooooot of work to do but for my second run (and much more challenging of a course) I think I did pretty good.

On to the next one! Woot!