mathbabe

Hey all! I told you I’m boring now, so here’s proof. I ran my second 5K race this morning.

My first one was in early February, and I ran with my buddy Elizabeth (who you might remember as my yarn whisperer) and my husband Johan:

They gave us hot cocoa and bagels afterwards, which was nice because it was 17 degrees.

This morning my husband watched me run the same route but without cocoa:

This morning it was a balmy 33 degrees at race time.

My goal is always simply to finish the race without stopping, which I’m happy to report I did both times. I run really slow, though, so it always becomes this thing where I’m near the very back, with people who run by me and then stop to walk, and then I slowly pass them, and then they run by me again. By the end of the race I’m kind of the last always-runner and ahead of most of the sometimes-walkers.

I’m happy to report that this second race was easier to complete (I never felt like I wouldn’t be able to, whereas in the first race there were definitely moments I was forcing myself to keep going) AND my time went down! From 39:00 to 38:55, so a full five seconds. For those interested, that’s 0.21% faster. Did I mention that I’m a slow runner? I’m also a very consistently slow runner.

I’ve signed up for a triathlon at Lake Welch in May. It’s a sprint triathlon, so the running part of it is a 5K, which is by far the hardest part for me. So I’m well on my way to training. For the next two months I’ll be doing lots of biking and running and trying to sometimes do two in a day, to build up stamina. The swimming is super easy so I barely need to practice that, but I will anyway because it’s nice sometimes to do something easy instead of forcing yourself to do something hard. Having said that, I’ve really been enjoying the running, it gets out a good portion of my urban aggression. Also I honestly enjoy being that slow runner whom everyone passes, because it makes them feel really fast, and I’m happy for them, and I don’t mind at all being slow. I’m just grateful to be healthy.

OK, sorry to bore everyone with all of this, but if you’re doing similar stuff, feel free to sign up for the same triathlon as I am and I’ll see you there!