We woke up at 8am and what to my wondering eyes should appear? But a little monthly gift that I was NOT hoping to get this morning. It was unfortunate but what was I going to do? We fueled with some coffee and got to registration 2 hours early, ugh. We drove around to look at the course and stayed in my car because it was so windy. I swear the wind was PAINFUL to be out in. My parents got there and we all hung out until the race started:
You can see the power of the wind in our hair and not in a sexy way, lol. I have to admit I had some butterflies seeing all the hardcore runners and knowing this was my first race, but I suppressed them by saying, "It's only a half hour of your life".... Then the race was ready to begin:
My sister and I were near the front (gulp), and we were facing the gusts of wind.. I look scarrrrred:
Then the race started and I felt GOOD. I had Boston playing and I was cruising. Dana is at a faster pace than me so we parted ways and I let a bunch of speed demons pass me. I was in my own world and I disciplined myself to not get caught up in going ahead of my pace. I had my stopwatch on and I reached the 1 mile marker at 9:40! It was a great starting time! I kept on and ended up passing Dana going the opposite way and we slapped five. It was so great to see her, and gave me an extra push.We turned the bend and WHAM, the wind was blowing straight at me. Me and 2 girls near me grunted simultaneiously at this point. Halfway down I speed walked for about 30 seconds and then continued to mile 2 at around 21 mins. At this point I was getting really tired and started harping on myself for not running outside as much during training. I speedwalked again for about 45 seconds at the last turn into the wind, which felt like someone pushing me. AND THEN.......I heard Dana say, "C'mon Erin", and I booked it to the finish, in the midst of feeling like I was going to puke, fall over and yell for joy:
I'm on the left with my booty in all it's glory, haha. It was a great feeling being done and being hugged by my family. 
I was panting, "I need water" and booked it to my car to chug some.
I looked down on my stopwatch, completely forgetting I was being timed and didn't know my official time either. Dana informed me she broke her record time and got 24:58! Sooooo good!
We waited for the awards ceremony, because we had an incling Dana may place in her age group of 20-24. My offical time was 32:10 which was great for me, especially for my first race plus the wind factor. My pace was 10:20 mile and I couldn't be happier! After seeing our times, we waited and waited and..........
Dana placed 2nd overall in her age group! This was Dana's first race ever and I was so proud of her. I teared up when she went up to get her medal. She was 68th overall out of 400 runners. She put so much hard work into training and it paid off. She's the one that talked me into running this and I owe her so much for it. Love ya sista.... After the awards, we clearly needed to rest our tired bodies and sip on these delicious blue and yellow bottles of heaven:
They had a buffet which included some hot dogs, perogies and meatballs and we sampled them all and then felt extremely sick after it. I still couldn't believe we ran the race and we both were so glad to have experienced our first race together. Dana and I are good motivators for eachother, and we learned that backpacking and now running. I am so glad that I have opened my eyes to races and I know I will be doing more in my future!
As for my current condition, I am a little sore but shin-splintless, and very enlightened by the race. I hope you all had a great Saturday, and I hope I showed to you that it is possible to go from not running at all to a 5k in a couple of weeks... All you need is the wind at your back and loved ones at your side and your eye on the finish...
Meditation of the Day
"A lot of people run a race to see who's the fastest. I run to see who has the most guts."
- Steve Prefontaine
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