windchill, running and… (possibly) laryngitis ;)

Yeah, tough combination I think. But we did it. We-as in, for the first time, my Husband and I running in one race. I’d say together, but it wouldn’t be true – although he offered 🙂 I wanted him to feel the adrenaline once again (he used to compete in all sorts of events some years ago). Well. I did this run last year, my Husband and my Son cheering me on 🙂 This year I signed us both. With a bowl of chili and glass of beer at the end – you can’t go wrong, can you? well… unless… There is the low of -12C with the windchill of -20C on the morning of your race… AND you just happened to lose your voice…

Hence the title of this post.

I was prepping myself for the possibility I’d have to walk that 5km. I know it is ok. The thought of not going at all kinda slipped through my head once or twice, but I got rid of it saying that unless I have a fever in the morning – I’m going and that’s that. Well. My body temperature in the morning was 36.8C, which is considered perfectly normal (ok I MIGHT have cheated a smidge, taking NeoCitran extra strenght night relief, at about 11pm last night. But it’d have been gone by 6 am wouldn’t it? 😀

Anyways. We got up (an hour early, yes, the wonderful daylight saving time), ate breakfast, I took another dose of NeoCitran and we were off.

Let me tell you one thing: it was COLD! I was trying to protect my poor throat by covering my mouth and breathing through a fleece neckwarmer, but had to take it down at times as it was making the breathing a bit harder.

AND – not only did I finish still running, the time wasn’t bad at all! My Garmin showed we did longer than 5km, and so my time was a bit more, but still pretty good 🙂

Bowl of chili and a glass of beer followed 🙂 And Live Irish Band.

As for my throat? A visit to the doctor is in plans for tomorrow.

Bread & Honey :)

Another 5 km race 🙂 

“Another” sounds much better than to say just “second”, right? 🙂

Anyways. I feel like I have the right to write it that way, considering where I came from (hating running and everything connected with it, being certain I can’t and won’t run, like, ever 😉 ) and where I am now (the short story of my running here :D) . And considering everything that happened between that first race on December 6th 2014, and this one… I ran 10 km in the Chocolate Race for goodness sake! 🙂 Me. A forever NON-running person…

So yeah, I feel like I have the right to brag, be proud and happy about all the achievements, no matter how small they might seem 😀

Yesterday’s race was all that I thought the race should be. Emotions – I do not know if I ever will stop being so emotional when I start or finish the race? 🙂 This time I almost cried when starting 🙂 And was too proud of myself to cry when I was crossing the finish line. Because I knew I pushed myself pretty hard at the end, when I saw the time and thought – hey, I might have a chance to go under 29 minutes! How big would that be? And I sprinted – yes, sprinted – the last 50 meters or so. And I did it. 🙂 I finished in 28:55 (with the chip time being about two seconds less and “official” time being 3 seconds more I’m sticking to my Garmin 😉 ).  Ended up 12th in my age group, 102th woman (out of 441) and overall 233th (out of 694 people in 5k :D)

People ask me what’s next. They are almost casually throwing a: “are you going to run a marathon” in there…

As I think about it, all those people that ask that question are not running. 🙂

At the point I am now, I am actually starting to allow myself to think about a half. Just to think! But before that – there is a few accomplishments I intend to do – there is a fun 13.6 km run in summertime… Which I`d love to do with my Husband… There is a 15km somewhere, that I`d like to run first. And even though it might seem to be not a big deal to some, to me, each kilometer is a big deal. Because there are times I have to fight for a 100m. AND because for me it is not a question about the distance – I got that. It is always about RUNNING that distance…