Today I Drank A Coke: 5 Miles

I'm taking a break from my thankful posts, which hopefully will be back later tonight or tomorrow. They've been on hiatus due to illness and busyness!

Today I ran my first race ever and I am maybe a little proud of myself. See, I've never been the athletic type. I barely made it out of gym in school and the only awards I ever got was in 8th grade from my gym teacher that I had managed to be assigned to every year of my time at Covington Middle School. Coach Ramirez put up with my whining, moping and occasional crying through units on volleyball, basketball, softball and our weekly one mile runs. I famously managed a few 20 minute miles when I was feeling extra annoyed with the fact I was in gym clothes. However, the end of 8th grade he gave me one of the student of the year awards, for sticking it out every year!

So, anyway, not the sporty type. But Isaac is a gym rat and very (very) slowly I have embraced parts of the gym lifestyle. Last year Isaac had run the annual Austin Turkey Trot, a five mile race on Thanksgiving morning with our friend Kristina and they had finished with good times and enjoyed the experience Soon afterwards I took up running and long story short, I was talked into (signed up behind my back) for the race.

I had slowly been working my way up to five miles and took up yoga as well to combat some hip issues and I had a game plan for the week and a half leading up to race day. Run 5 miles on Tuesday, yoga on Thursday, run 5 miles Saturday, yoga on Sunday, Run 3 miles on Monday, yoga on Tuesday and rest/carb up on Wednesday. So I ran my 5 miles Tuesday and then woke up Thursday morning with a cold. By Thursday afternoon, I was home with a fever and a sore throat. Yoga out. Saturday, I was still feeling crummy and a cough had developed. 5 mile run out. Sunday, made it to yoga and besides nagging cough thought I was on the mend, would revise plan run 5 miles Monday, yoga Tuesday, rest Wednesday, race Thursday. Then Monday hit, cough worse, and feeling bad again. Run out. Tuesday, still feeling bad, go to doctor demand something, anything and told I have bronchitis.
Long, annoyed sigh.....pick up antibiotics, no yoga (mainly out of time constraints). Still rested and carbed up Wednesday.

So there I was Thursday morning, 2 days into a z pack and Mucinex, ready to run.
We headed down at 7am to Auditorium Shores with Kristina and her six year old daughter Avery, got Av signed up for the kids course and got ourselves ready.

The race started at 9:30 and as I stood on the 1st street bridge holding Isaac's hand I began to feel sick. What if I couldn't breathe well, what if I started coughing, what if I couldn't handle all the hills (it was a very hilly course this year) I hadn't trained on hills. Last minutes "I love yous" and we were off. Isaac runs at a much faster pace then I do, so I lost sight of him quickly, but that was okay, I'd find him afterwards, and we had our phones.

I had planned a special race mix for my ipod, but that didn't happen so I stuck to my general gym playlist, which is music I like, but not all "running" music. It was good though, the songs I needed seemed to find me. Much of my gym playlist is Glee soundtrack and Pink, nothing great, but music that keeps me moving. As I found myself struggling the first time Pink reminded me that I'm a rock star, later when I felt myself falling, Rachel and Kurt reminded me to Defy Gravity, and later during my hell mile near the end Rachel and Finn urged me to "Don't Stop Believing".

I was surprised at how well I started out, it was crowded, but I didn't feel as crunched as I'd expected and I handled the first hill well. It was a strange feeling to be running in the streets of downtown, when I am usually driving or on the sidewalk, the city looks so different from that vantage point. It was amazing to look up Lavaca and only be able to see a crown of people moving up the street at once. What it must have looked like to someone driving or even flying overhead. It was also cool to see all the people lining the streets cheering us on, whether they lived along the route, were cops keeping the streets blocked or people just walking downtown, they all stopped to wave and yell encouraging words. When you're running alone with strangers, that kind of thing makes a big difference.

I was happy to make it almost two miles before I needed to slow to a walk for a minute, I was able to make it another mile or so before slowing again to a walk again and I struggled from 3.5 to 4.5 as usual, that's my killer mile. It didn't help, my body isn't used to running so much on the street, most of my runs are on trail and the concrete stated to affect my right ankle and my left hip. I began to feel the bronchitis as my breath started to sound wheezy.

The last stretch of the run started as we ran over an overpass leading into downtown and it was a pretty cool feeling running down the bridge and seeing the city laid out before you. After that though,the street seemed to be endless, stretching on and on but soon I saw city hall and knew I was almost done.

Oddly as I crossed back over the 1st street bridge for the finish, running only on adrenaline and the knowledge that I was done, the Glee cover of New York State of Mind came on but it actually seemed to fit. I was running through Austin, my city of birth, my city in general and I was surrounded by other Austinites all of us determined to get across that finish line. So I found myself changing the words of New York to Austin and it made me smile and kept my legs moving.

My favorite part of any run is the very last stretch, no matter how long I've run, I find a burst of speed that feels so good as I approach my goal. Tears started fill my eyes as I crossed the finish line, in under an hour. 5 miles, under an hour with bronchitis and lack of training.

I found Isaac almost immediately where he greeted me with a huge hug and a bottle of water.I have to admit, I was teary eyed as I thought about how I had just finished a race, when just over a year ago 1 minute running on the treadmill had left me gasping for air. It's amazing what we can do when we set our mind to it.
So that was my race, we will be newlyweds next year and we may have international guests but we are going to try and do it again, make it our tradition, it's a good way to feel like you earned your supper!