One Down, Just 23 more

It is the first day of a new year, new decade and new Bike Run Yoga Challenge (BRY Challenge). I ran my first BRY Challenge event today, an easy 5k that turned out to actually be a 5 mile run! I should pay better attention to what I sign up for!

I signed up for what I thought was the New Year's Day 5k run near my house. I thought it was perfect, close and short; a good way to start off the year. I picked up my shirt and number yesterday, never occurred to me to look at the shirt. I looked up the race info again online yesterday and still didn't notice it was a 5 mile race.

It was FREEZING when I got up. I walked to the race, it was only 1/2 a mile from my house. I ended up jogging just to stay warm. Frost was still on the ground and the leaves were cracking under my feet because they were pieces of ice.

As I stood around waiting with the other runners, a lady comes on over the loud speaker and is explaining the course. "You are going to take a left on Lawther, go about 2 1/2 miles down. At Tiffany you are going to turn left and come back on the trail. Someone will be taking photos at about 4 1/2." What?! What mile? I turned to the guy next to me, "how far are we running?" "Five miles," he says. I say, "oh, I thought this was a 5k."

He looks at me a little funny and says "is this the first moment you realized it was 5 miles?" "Uh, yes!" And at that point people took off and I didn't have time to think, I had to start running! So 5 miles... Here I come!

It was blistering cold and at moments I was cursing at myself for not wearing gloves. And the nice man at Run On that convinced me NOT to buy long running pants, that capris would be enough, was ABSOLUTELT wrong! Long pants were a must! My calfs were very cold. My fingers were freezing and my hands were in a permanent fist shape, I could barely move my fingers. And yet, I was sweating, unbelievable.

I made it to the finish line... A little beat up but I finished. As I was running mile 4 and I could feel my glut muscles working, I remembered a conversation I just have with my personal trainer, that I need her bc I would never push myself to my max on my own. Running is no different. I COULD have run faster... But I would have had to work harder and it would have hurt more. And heck, it is January 1 for goodness sake! I have 23 more events in my BRY Challenge, no need to blow it out on the first event. Plenty of time to shine.

Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®