Green Valley 8K Race

On Thursday my good friend Amy told me that she was running a race on Saturday. I have signed up to do the Snickers Half-Marathon in a few weeks since Myrtle Beach was canceled. I signed up for the race on my phone in the Costco parking lot. Last night another friend Danielle mentioned that she was going – so we went together.

I was SO scared. I had never run an 8K before (about 4.96 miles). I walked a half marathon a few years ago, but I have had sore feet for three months & only done a 2.0 mile walk & a 5.0 mile walk/run on Wednesday of this week. My ITB (outside of the knee) was really, really tight & painful after Wednesday. But I decided to try – I stay on my feet for hours & hours every day, right? I could walk if I needed to. My goal was to finish in 1:15.00 minutes.

It was COLD to start – I wore Scott’s nice fleece gloves (thanks Julie!) plus a long-sleeved jacket. I had checked out the times from last year & knew that I would be in the END of the pack. I decided to run two minutes, walk three minutes for the race. It worked! The campus is beautiful – I even took a picture while I was walking. (… while putting the camera/ipod back into my pocket, I accidentally turned up the volume & blasted my ears.) The course was a lot hillier than I expected. The hardest point for me was the hill that was right after the 3.0 mark – mentally I knew that I had not raced that far. Luckily, my walk came just after that point & I was able to talk to “Michelle” for the next three minutes. It was funny being at the end of the back – the cyclists kept riding by to make sure that we were all still upright.

Music really helped me on the run – I made a new playlist this morning & enjoyed all but one song. (Bad language/topic – I didn’t know!!!)  For the last mile I just decided to run as much as I could. My time was 58:46. Not super fast but not really that slow either. :) I am so happy that I went the distance & finished & that my feet didn’t kill me. Next week I have to run 2, 5, & 6 miles.