Beat Coach Pete...not quite

Today, Emily and I headed out to BSU for the "Beat Coach Pete" 5K. We were both a little nervous after our day yesterday (Friday). We got together for our last training run Thursday night and during it I did something to my knee. It hurt so bad. Friday I spent the day trying really hard not to limp so that I could possibly have a chance at running the race. Emily woke up Friday not feeling well and stayed home from work. Yeah, we were nervous, but in those circumstances we had some reason for it.

I woke up this morning at 6am (only so Marcel could take me to Emily's house before he had to head to school) and immediately put ice on my knee and took some ibuprofen. I promised myself that I was at least going to try to run.

When we got there they had the cheerleaders/dance team doing zumba to warm us all up, but nearly every participant just stood there watching, so Emily and I went on a very short walk and got back to find our place in line. I thought we were pretty close to the front, but once the horn went off and it took forever for us to have room to start running, I realize we could have been a lot closer.

I started running and felt pretty good. I should mention that I've had my fair share of knee problems, and even had surgery on the one that's hurting now years ago, so my mom had found my old knee brace (it was still really new looking which really surprised me). The brace was probably my saving grace. There were a few times when I was hurting, but not as bad as it had been while running on Thursday so I just kept pushing through. After 8 weeks of training, I did not want to be walking, and I didn't want to let Emily down and make her walk which she had agreed to do if I needed to.

The run was actually pretty easy. It was a great route, and the general race atmosphere was great. I didn't see the "Mile 1" sign, but was really surprised at how fast "Mile 2" came around. It was fun to have part of the marching band playing as we crossed the finish line. Seems cheesy now, but it in the moment it felt like they were playing for no one except me!

I am proud to say that we crossed the finish line in 32:30!!

I haven't seen it on the news yet and the after-party was boring so I'm not sure how fast Coach Pete was, but the website said he was aiming for 26-27 minutes

We had been running 30 minutes at a time, but had yet to drive our route to see if we were actually going 3 miles, and I was secretly hoping to make it in that amount of time. I'm proud of myself and Emily either way, but we did decide that if we wouldn't have had to wait so long to start that would have saved us some time. Also since we weren't super close to the front, there was a long time of trying to go around people as we went from a road to narrow paths before the crowd got more spread out. If we were to go do it tomorrow we would easily make it in 30 minutes. We're going to do the Boise Race for the Cure on May 8th and then after that begins my training for longer races, including a 10K a training for my half-marathon! I never thought there would be a day in my life that I'd enjoy running, but after these 8 weeks and especially after today, I proudly say I do.

We didn't take any pictures because I wasn't going to run with my camera but when I got home I took a picture of my number. Maybe in the next few days I'll add a picture of me wearing my awesome new t-shirt that says "I'll beat Pete next year"