Why I, too, hate running aka for Ali

My friend Ali @ The Alitary Blog recently wrote a post about running and in honor of her I decided to repost my post about my worst 5k ever (thanks Emily & Clay).

Saturday, April 25, 2009


Must hate running aka damn 5k

I've noticed lately that everyone I know seems to be jumping onto this running bandwagon. It seems like every FB status update I see has something to do with running this many miles or that 5k or what not. And I have been just as guilty. My current attempt at running as mostly to do with my fat belly, my fear of diabetes or heart disease, and my love of food and drink. I sense that my inability to lose my fat belly is directly related to the food and drink.
I am up to 1 mile, on the treadmill, at .5 incline. Outside is a whole other story. Case in point: the Race for Charity 5k we did this morning. Obviously NOT my idea.

Our friends, Emily and Clay, are doing a missions trip to Africa and they were able to raise money at this Race for Charity 5k and somehow I said Paul and I would "run" this 5k with them. I truly feel I must have been drunk when I made that promise; however, I do like to keep my promises to my friends so...

6:45am dawned bright and much earlier than I typically like to get up on a Saturday or any other day for that matter (my usual wake up time is anywhere between 8:30am and 10am...getting a real job in Boston is SO going to SUCK). I downed half a granola bar (Paul ate the other half) and a glass of milk and off we went.

The race started at 8am and there really were not a lot of people racing. It was going to be painfully obvious who the LAST runner was; however, I feel that somehow has to be last...might as well be me.

We start off at the track at the middle school. I am highly out of breath before we get off the track onto the road portion. Emily keeps telling me to breathe in through my nose and out through my mouth. A good theory, but one that interferes with my ability to SUCK in air as fast as I possibly could. At this point I am just trying not to pass out...not even an entire mile into the race.

I tell Paul that he can go on without me and Emily sacrifices herself to stay with me. If she hadn't then I totally would've been the absolute last runner. We then get passed by a man in a wheelchair; however, we are able to overtake him...I think only because we are going uphill. Once we hit the downward side he passed us with nary a glance our way. We never caught up with him again. Yes, a man in a wheelchair beat me (I say me because I definitely held Emily back from reaching her potential which I totally appreciated).

Emily talked the entire time we ran. I tried to answer; however, when she sensed that answering her was interfering with my ability to breathe she told me I didn't have to answer her to which I grunted out my gratitude. I will say that she was an awesome running coach. Besides her impractical advice on breathing, she did motivate me to push myself and tell me what spots to walk to and what spots to run to. She guessed I ran about 75% of the time which was a lot better than I thought I would do.

To give you a guess as to how slow we were...a cop had to bring up the rear of the runners because we were on a road. I don't even think the cop car would idle as slow as we were running. Even more embarrassing is that none of the cars behind the cop could pass him so it was like we were leading a parade. Some of the cops were super nice (they were at every intersection) and would give us encouragement as we ran by (while secretly thinking what the hell are these girls doing aka hurry the fuck up I'm sure); however, eventually the cop behind us gave up and drove off.

There was a water station and anyone who knows me knows I am big into recycling. We both got cups of water and as we were running Emily drank her's and threw it on the ground. I actually stopped and looked at her with my mouth open. She assured me that they come and pick them up and I said do you promise and she said yes and I begrudgingly through my cup down. I still feel uncomfortable about it.

On the way back, around mile 2, I did not feel good. I have bad sinuses, there's a lot of phlegm involved in my airways, and Emily asked me if I was going to throw up. I did not...mostly out of sheer embarrassment at throwing up on the side of a busy road. At this point I felt like I was running through jello as my legs were moving so slow.

When we got closer to the event I said something to Emily about being surprised Paul hadn't come back for us and then he came around the corner! Emily said how blessed I am to have him and she is totally right! He ran with us the entire end. We got back to the track and slowly made our way back around towards the finish line. Mile 3 and only 2/10ths left to go. Paul told us if we sprinted we could make sub 40 so we did and came in at 39 minutes...the last ones to complete the race!

We then did a cool down lap (walking of course) and had some water and were home by 9:30am. I showered and took a nap. And when Paul woke up from his nap we went to lunch and then I went and saw the Hannah Montana movie (which was really cute so don't hate). My legs hurt so bad I had to take a bath when I got home. I still can't bend my knees, or feel my toes, but eventually my chest pains stopped. Thank god for small miracles I guess. Or maybe a large one as who knows whats going on inside there.

No, I didn't win any prizes today; however, I did get to spend 39 minutes with a great friend, have more proof of how much Paul loves me (not that I needed it) and completed the goal I set for myself. All in all, I definitely came out a winner today and what could be better than that!