My 5K Experience

So the 5K was this past weekend. That whole event didn't turn out the way I envisioned it in my head. Few things ever do, really.

Last week I woke up with pain on the side of my foot. At my age and lack of athletic level, I have a lot of such aches and pains lately. I suspect that if I were in better shape these things wouldn't happen, but then perhaps the opposite would be true and I'd have even more aches and pains from muscle strain. I may or may not ever find that out. 

I figured that particular pain would go away once I was warmed up and into my run, but it didn't. In fact, it got worse. That wasn't fun. I didn't get to run much that day, because while the pain was certainly bearable, it's not in anybody's best interest to push themselves to the point where they DO hurt badly enough that it's debilitating.

This, people, is why I'm not a top athlete. I have no "fight through the pain!" instincts.

I walked the rest of last week, and figured I'd just walk in the 5K, because while I was registered as a runner (who wasn't even going to run the whole event anyway, because I'm not in that kind of shape yet), it's okay to be a runner and just walk it. (It's not okay, however, to be a walker and run on occasion. I did learn that much in the process.) That was the plan; to walk my first 5K.

I also had a sales event on Saturday that Becky had volunteered to set up for me until I could get there after the race. (Okay, "had volunteered" may be slightly different than "was volunteered" but it still equates to the same thing, right?) Becky's helper, however, wasn't able to go, and the location almost demanded two people to set up. I chose to make money rather than run a race, so I sent Luke and Micah to the race with Grandma and took Becky and Louie to make some money.

Luke ran, because he's a runner. He finished in 33 minutes, and could have done so much better had he not been afflicted with that dreaded disease of THERE AREN'T ANY BATHROOMS AND I NEED ONE RIGHT NOW. Poor kiddo. The race encouragers were just impressed that he was still running while so afflicted. He did not get his athletic ability from me. Obviously.

Micah and Grandma walked the entire 3.1 miles, and while Micah lagged a few times, he finished. His encouragement was finding Luke at the finish line. There was the lady with the walker, when the finish line was in sight, who encouraged Micah to keep going, and by golly he did. That boy took off running to find Luke. This is against all rules, of course, but since he was almost literally the last one to cross the finish line, there is nobody that is really going to dispute that fact. 

So that's how Micah ended up completing a 5K event before I did, And I've decided that I'll probably never be a runner because I'm not about doing things that hurt, but I do love getting out into nature daily and taking a good brisk hike. And by "brisk" I mean that my MapMyWalk app has told me that I run and I walk exactly the same distance in the same amount of time. I'm fairly certain that MapMyWalk is a liar liar pants on fire. But my morning hikes are far less about completing them in a timely manner and far more about enjoying time in nature and getting some exercise while doing it. I consider that a win all around.