Shocked, Happily

Last night, my aunt and I decided to run a 5K. We both thought we would be completely slow and just doing it for fun. But, I carried on and did my serious runner warm-up and put on my serious runner face. The race was the Thunder Chicken 5K in Portsmouth, NH. The name does not inspire feelings of being a fit, fast runner. In fact, the name of the race makes me think it's going to be a lot of large people chasing me...or large chickens maybe.

There were a lot of legit-looking runners at the start and a slew of high school runners. The course would be approximately 1.5 miles of a slight uphill followed by 1.5 miles of a slight downhill. Perfect!

In a 5K, you have to work hard the entire race if you're trying to run a certain time. So, that was my plan...I was going to see how close I could get to suffering for 5K but still have fun. I pushed up the rolling hills on the way out and had to dig deep to make the most of the downhills. For the last mile, I was alongside a guy and a gal and I was trying to stay ahead of them. When I was sure that they were going to out-kick me in the last200 meters, I found something and got ahead of them.

I finished in 22:22, which was a complete shock (and my aunt rolled in a few minutes later, not ten as she had predicted). I am just back to training after putzing around all summer, so there is no real justification for my pace but I did have to summon my guts. Giddy-up! Let's get back into this serious running thing.

And, Portsmouth is just the cutest place ever. Since I think I'll be back for Newport next summer, maybe I'll have to do the Chicken again.