Racing With My Peeps

That corny post title was my attempt at being funny.  You get kind of silly when you wait until 10:30 pm to write a blog post after being up since 5:00 am.  Why have I been up since 5?  Today I ran my fourth 5K and met up early this morning with a bunch of friends who decided to make the drive together. This 5K benefited a mission that is raising money to build chicken houses in Haiti.  {Hence the goofy title: chickens=peeps. groan!}

This is our pre-race photo.  It was cold this morning.  As in, frost-on-the-windshield-32-degrees-cold, but the sun shone bright and the air was calm so, aside from a few shivers before we started, all was good. 

L to R: Britni, Jodi, Kate, Joanie, Melanie, Joanne, Hunter, me, Brian, & Barry

This was Brian's first 5K.  Brian has been my cheerleader at every race I've done so it was a lot of fun to cheer him on today. He walked the course with two friends, and on a whim they decided to run the last mile. 

Hunter, Barry, & Brian

I have a hard time setting race goals.  I want to challenge myself, but I don't want to set myself up for disappointment if I don't do as well as I aspire. That's why I set a 2-tiered goal for today.  My primary goal was to improve my overall time from my third 5K which was 29:25.  My more ambitious, tentative goal was to run the race at a 9:00 per mile pace, giving me an overall time of 27:54. The first goal was my baseline and my second goal was the bonus.

The most motivating factor of this race was all the friends I had out on the course.  As we spotted each other, we would wave and shout encouragement.  I've always been among strangers on the race course so today was a new experience.  (I could add more silliness and say it was a breath of fresh air.)

As I neared the finish line, I was able to pull out a little bit of energy that I was holding back and sprint over the finish line, completing the 3.1 miles in 27:33!  That's 21 seconds faster than even my ambitious goal, and putting me at approximately a 8:55 per mile pace. 

This race went beyond meeting my own goals, though.  It was also about fellowship with friends and fellow believers.  It was about watching my friends conquer their fears and try new things.  It was about togetherness and spurring one another on.

One of the signs at the finish line summed it up. It said, "I have fought the good faith, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."  (I Timothy 4:7)

One last photo: everyone in this picture (except the children) had already completed a 3.1 mile trek and they look just as happy as they did at the beginning, don't you think? 

L to R: Barry, Joanne, Hunter, Brian, Kate with Abi on her shoulders, me, Melanie, Joanie, Britni with Belle, Jodi, & Alex