I Made It All The Way

Short story is....

I ran a complete 3.1 miles/5 K yesterday!!!!!!!!!

(on the treadmill)

Long story is...

As most of you know I finished the Couch to 5K program last week. For me it meant being able to jog 30 minutes straight, but not exactly 5K (or 3.1 miles). As I was talking to my husband about my accomplishment I told him that upon finishing that third 30-minute jog I wasn't really winded and dying to quit. It was tough, but I knew I could've kept going.

hhhmm... That got me thinking, "I wonder if I can jog a full 5K yet?"

So, yesterday I decided I would try it, or at least jog as much as I could. I started out at a brisk jogging pace for me (4.2 mph) and kept that up for the first mile. The second mile I took it back down to 4 mph, then back up to 4.1 where I finally fell into a steady rhythm that I felt I could keep up for a while.

The sweat was pouring down the sides of my face. It was great!

Suddenly twenty five minutes rolled around and I realized that if I was doing my "normal" jog I would be done in only five minutes. I realized then that I could probably keep going for the entire 5K. I kept it steady, bumping up the pace for the a minute or two at different intervals.

At thirty minutes the treadmill decided it was time for me to be done and I had to reset my time for fifteen more minutes. Unfortunately, every minute it tried to go down into cool down settings, so I had to reset my pace every minute. That was interesting, but thankfully it didn't wear me out or make it hard.

And at about 44 minutes I reached that magic number of my running dreams thus far

3.1 (miles)

At the same moment the little trail on the screen showed me crossing the 5K mark.

I was so happy I was smiling and I wanted to turn and shout it to everyone in the gym. LOL Instead I texted two of my best friends and my husband with the news. I also told one woman in the stretching/core room, because I couldn't contain my excitement. (And there were no guys in there at that particular moment...*sheepish grin* )

The best part of this entire story is that I was NOT exhausted at the end of my jog. I jogged 3.1 miles and I wasn't dying to stop during those last few minutes. This shows me that I can endure a race.

So....yes, I'm going to start looking for a 5K race to run in this spring. I'm so excited and can't wait to see more health goals reached in my life this year!