4th of July 5K

I ran a 5K this morning. I didn't feel so great when I first woke up this morning. Too much junk food yesterday - we had dinner at Friendly's so of course I had to have a peanut butter cup sundae. I felt like it was still there taunting me when I woke up, but I put on my big girl panties and went to the race anyway. My husband and my girlies were there to cheer for me. M and S made signs that said Go Mommy! They are so sweet!

I have always thought that I am slow, but consistently so. And I was reminded of that today as I went the through the first mile at 10:30 and then the second mile at 21:02. Hello - I have always run 10:30 miles and seems like I always will. How do I get faster? My husband has plans for that - but I have never been very motivated to follow his instructions. Anyway, back to the race. Just past the mile 2 mark there was a sharp uphill that I managed to run up but when I got tot he top and it leveled back out...I just couldn't breathe. So I stopped running and walked at a pretty quick pace just to get my breathing back under control. I have a tendency to hyperventilate if I get too overheated and/or anxious (I'm sure it is in my head more than anything, but that is just how I am). So I walked for about 30 seconds and then ran some more. I ran for another 2 minutes and then walked for another 30 seconds and then saw my husband and girlies again. I felt bad that I was walking when they spied me. I wanted my girlies to see me running, being a good strong healthy role model. So I sucked it up and started running again and was able to run all the way to the finish line another .5 mile away. I thought I would have to stop and walk a third time, but for some reason I felt good and just kept going. I picked it up at the very end to sprint past 2 or 3 people in the home stretch and finished with an official time of 33:54. That puts my last 1.1 miles at 12:52. So considerably slower than the first 2 miles, but with the walking, I'm not surprised by that. Plus, this was my first 3 miles outside (I'm usually a treadmill runner) since last summer so I feel good about it anyway. Yay me!