Fastest 54 Minutes of my Life

On Saturday, September 18, 2010, I completed my first 10K! I've been training for this event since the beginning of July - after a crazy friend of mine talked me into registering for the Wright Patt AFB Marathon 10K in Fairborn. I never thought I'd get up at 4:30 to run 6.2 miles. To tell you the truth, 18 months ago I never thought I'd RUN. Period. But here we were - Janal Livingston (the crazy one), Kati Stephens (the ridiculously fast one), and me, arriving at the AFB at 6:00 am. And it was worth it.

Despite our jittery nerves and complaining bodies, it was a beautiful race. The weather was perfect - about 55 degrees. And since the race began at 7:15, we got to watch the sun come up as we ran. The first 2 miles or so seemed to be all uphill, and I began to wonder if this was such a great idea after all. But after that, the course evened out and actually became enjoyable. I pushed myself a little beyond what was comfortable - my goal was to finish in less than an hour. And I made it!! I had to wait until I got home to check my official results online (there were 1,700 who finished the 10K, and we started with the marathoners, so I didn't cross the start line until 2 minutes after the gun went off), but was pleased to discover my time was 53:53, and that I finished 10th out of about 125 in my age category and 62nd out of nearly 1,000 women.

The only bummer about the day was that Danny and the kiddos couldn't be there. managed to successfully get them up, dressed, fed and ready for soccer practice, which he coached for 2 hours. I am continually blown away by him - he's a wonderful father and husband who I truly don't deserve.

Almost as exciting as running the 10K, was successfully completing a 10.8-mile run 2 weeks ago!! Since the longest distance I ever ran when in track my freshman year of high school was 9 miles, this is officially the longest distance I've gone so far! So . . . now I'm trying to decide whether or not it would be completely insane to run a half marathon on October 30th. Or maybe I'll just wait and run the Wright Patt AFB half next year. In any case, I'm thankful for the ability to glorify Christ in everything, including running - thankful for the ability to run; for good friends who challenge me; and the greatest family EVER, who encourage me. Now . . . I'm going to give myself a few days off from running.