5K Mission Adventure

We completed another 5k this past weekend.  It was fun and the weather was awesome.  For those of you who don't know, the 5K Mission Run/Walk benefits the Storehouse food bank here in Pflugerville, TX. Nice cause and I do think it was one of the more fun ones I’ve done. My husband ran it with me, my sister and T. He didn’t actually know he was going to be running it. I asked if he was going to go and his response was ‘I’ll be there to support you.’ When we got there, I went and collected 2 bibs and tshirts at the registration table. I told him, ‘I signed you up so you are racing.’ He is a go with the flow kind of guy and I knew a 5K was nothing for him. It would be like any other morning stroll. So, we lined up and Alex and I took off running. He left me at the .10 mark. I was more than OK with that. I learned a while back to run my own race and gave up on trying keeping up with him. I struggled with my knee a bit but that didn’t stop me from a jogging and walking. My husband was cheering me on at the finish so that was nice. I don’t know my exact finish time but it was below an hour so that was pretty good. T and my sister came in a little after an hour which was good considering it had been more than a week since either of them had worked out. Slackers! But it was fun and we helped the organization raise over 700 lbs of food! Woo hoo!

My husband pointed out (I asked for pointers!) that I don’t know how to control my breathing when I’m running outside. No kidding! There are so many factors that I don’t have to consider when running on the treadmill. A few of those factors are wind, pollen, dust, gravel, distractions and the heat. Half the time I’m only at it a few minutes before I start to get stuffy or sneezy. Of course the stuffy and sneezy depends on where I am. When it’s super hot and I’ve decided on a solo walking workout, I take the trail less traveled. It has tons of trees and it’s nice and shady for most of the 3 miles. But it also had bugs that find my afro, dust that makes its home in my nose, and some family of pollen has launched a vendetta against me. But it’s pretty and it’s 3 miles and I feel accomplished when I’m done. The ‘pretty’ and ‘accomplished’ part makes me want to keep working at it. My friend sent me a guide to learn how to pace myself and I have dusted off my old workout schedule and hope to be making improved strides in no time.