Fast, but not Turkey Fast

When I was growing up, my dad let all of us kids know that in high-school we were required to do a sport. There was no if-ands-or-buts about it--we would all be athletes because athletes learn discipline and work ethic and it kept kids out of trouble. My oldest sister did track, which was what my dad did in high-school and what he coached now that he was a teacher. He was quite pleased, even more so that she went on to BYU where she earned her bachelor's degree in psychology. The next sister did Swimming, which my father approved of as well and she went on to get her teaching certificate and serve a mission in Chile. My dad went to Guatimala--so, yeah, she proved his point as well. I tried cross country as a sophmore until I heard about this thing called tendinitis where your tendons get inflamed and it's very painful. I then used this tidbit of knowledge to get out of cross country. See, you can't spot tendinitis on an x-ray. I hated running and pretty much all other sports as well and managed to have tendinitis long enough that I was unable to be on the cross country team. In my defense, I think I really did have it . . . at first.

Anyway, I then went on to prove my dad right--if you didn't do sports you got into trouble. My poor father. A man of such ideals that I single-handidly crushed. The sports thing was picked up again a few kids later, but I bucked the system and took on lame boyfriends and bad grades instead--go me! I got married not quite a year after graduating high-school (with a tattoo) and dropped out of community college.

And yet, here I am, twenty years later, and running. I've run here and there the last few years and am just non-athletic enough to be all kinds of impressed with myself when I hit milestones.

"I ran half a mile without puking, wahoo!"

"I ran a whooooooole mile! Someone buy me a cheeseburger!"

"I ran TWOOOOO miles without taking any performance enhancing medication--Just call me Jackie Joiner."

Because I have never accomplished much in the way of athletics, everything I do accomplish is like super-star--in my own mind anyway. I know I'm not fast and I know I'm not all that disciplined--but still. A girl's got to have pride in something and since my oldest two kids are teenagers now, I have a lot of failure-complexes to overcome.

Two weeks ago I ran my first 5K. I was so nervous. I had gotten to where I could run four miles as I trained for it (Yeah, FOUR) but I'd never run with anyone but my friend Tiffany. To run with a huge group, and many of them dressed in coordinated warm up suits--whew, can you say intimidation? So, imagine my self-celebration when I came in at 28:39--which meant I ran my miles at about 9 and a half minutes. DANG good stuff for me!

And just in case I'm not impressed with myself enough, my husband is shocked. I think this stems from comments I've made over the years like "Running sucks" and "I stop exercising when it hurts or I can't breath very good." Now, I'm sticking to a schedule and pushing myself. He likes it. He likes it so much he decided to run yesterday's race with me. After last week's mix-up neither of us were all that pumped for yesterday but we were very glad it wasn't snowing and so we went ahead and did it.

We drove about 30 miles north (again--see last weeks post if you missed out on that thrill) and participated in Tremonton's annual Turkey Trot. The first place winners in each age/gender category win a frozen turkey and the second place winners win a free pie. Lee talked about how great it was going to be when I won the turkey. I laughed. I might be delusional, but I'm not THAT delusional. Still, I let him live out his little fantasy cause it made me feel good anyway.

My goal was twofold--beat my time from two weeks ago and keep breathing. I am pleased to say that I accomplished both of them! I came in at 28:28--11 seconds faster than my first 5K--and I managed to breath the whole way. I also killed (that's when you pass someone) 8 other runners after the first mile, and yes I am counting that little nine year old girl at a mile and a half AND the lady pushing the stroller that I passed about 20 feet from the finish line. No one killed me. I came in ninth in my age division which was 25-38 and I was number 43 overall, out of about 85 people. I also beat my husband by almost 30 seconds.

Unfortunately, coming in ninth does not win a Turkey, but my daughter came in as the 2nd girl at 8:49 in the kid's 1 mile and won a pie. My son came in third with a time of 7:40. Maybe I need to start running with him.

So anyway, I have caught the bug. Brigham City has a Thanksgiving race and I'm determined to beat my time again. Both my youngest kids are pumped up at their success and want to keep doing it to. Lee is shrugging off. He really hates running.

And who knows, maybe I'll invest in one of those coordinated warm up suits one of these days :-)
Unfortunately, I have to buy my own Thanksgiving turkey--and I don't eat turkey. That's totally not fair, but whatyagunnado? Fast but not turkey fast--I guess I can live with that.