7K

Susan, Missy and I all ran the Get Lucky 7K on Saturday.  It was my first race with Team Ortho and with these girls.  I will have to say that it was an incredible experience.  Since this was my third race ever, it turned out to be the longest and most crowded course yet.  There were over 5000 people signed up for this race and the longest distance I had ever run was a 5K.  This race was so fun because everyone dressed up in St. Patrick's Day gear.  There were green tutu's, green Afro's, green shirts, socks, headbands, blinking lights, knee highs, kilts and so much more.  The atmosphere was buzzing with spirit and despite the freezing cold temperatures at the start everyone had a smile on their face.  This was also the first race I ran in which music was allowed.  Big.Difference.  Running a race where you have nothing to think about except the fried food booths that you are running past is infinitely more difficult than jamming out to some Dr. Dre, Nickleback and Lady Gaga.  I was running and singing and running and singing and 4K went by in the blink of an eye.  I will mention here that regardless of the huge green signs that marked the 4K, I still thought that it meant 4 miles and I started sprinting.  You can imagine how much of a dumb ass I felt like when the next sign wasn't "Get Lucky 7K Finish!" and instead it said "5K".  What.an.idiot.  So, I went back to normal pace and then shook my head at the irony of it all.  My body is trained to a 5K.  I can run 3.2 easy.  But, then I need to be done.  However, in this case I still had two more kilometers to go.  Arghhhhh!  I thought I had broken that body barrier with my 6 weeks of training for this race...I guess not.  The last two kilometers were still fun and I finished with a time of 39:15 which translates to roughly 9 minute miles.  Exactly the same pace as my previous two races.  I like the fact that I can add distance and still run just as fast the whole time.  I am feeling more confident now about tackling a half marathon.  I would  love to run Grandma's Half in the next year or two.  Hopefully I will still feel as confident come registration time :)

This is my first race medal.  Not only did you get a medal upon finishing this race, we got the black and green zip up hoodie that says "Get Lucky" on it and a free mug of Finnegan's at Kieran's Irish Pub.  We celebrated our amazing race at the bar sporting our green and gushing to each other about how awesome our run was!  I cannot wait to do this run again :)