See Jane Run 5k {Leftovers}

I love my husband for MANY reasons.

The main reason THIS week??

PICTURES!  

While I was busy getting my 5k on, Gary was a rock star blogger and took a TON of pictures for our memories {and my blog posts}!

Here's a sampling of some of my favorite pics from the 5k!

Me with my See Jane Run Swag!

What woman wouldn't??

All smiles at 7 am

We had noooo idea what was about to happen to us!  ha ha ha

I love these two!

That park was packed full!

A lady had just asked if we were famous because we had so many people there taking pictures!

Look carefully...these signs were ALL over.  Very confusing, but they made me laugh!

Almost there!

Finishing strong

We did it!!

I know I get overly mushy sometimes, but I seriously could not do anything I do without the support of Gary...he is my biggest supporter & #1 fan!

This is going up on my wall with my medal!

TRUTH.  We've been friends for 20+ years now and I wouldn't have wanted to share this experience with anyone else.

See Jane Run 5k {Recap}

My first 5k was a success and SUCH a blur, but I am going to try and sort all my thoughts out to share with you!

What I ran for...chocolate & champagne!

Since the race was almost 2 hours from home, Gary & I decided to stay overnight in Alameda {the horribleness of our hotel stay will be another post}, so we could walk the .9 miles to the Start Line and not have to wake up toooo early.


We still woke up at 5:45 to make the 6am Continental Breakfast the hotel provided.  Good thing we brought some boiled eggs and fruit of our own...the coffee and nutri-grain bar I got was not going to hold me over for 3 hours!


My race did not start until 8:30, but we wanted to meet my BFF, Deidre, and her family ahead of time, so we got there at 7:30.  Once the Half Marathon started at 8, Dee and I went to the Porta Potty station....holy crap!  There were 3 LONG ass lines!  Luckily, they all went quickly, so WE could go quickly!  hee hee

Imagine this with 3 LONG lines...

After that, Dee & I lined up as close to the Start Line as we could...which wasn't that close. While waiting for the race to start, we went over our strategy for the day.  When training together, we would start off walking before jogging, but wanted to kick it up a notch!

If you would turn left, we were a ways back from the Starting line.

Weeeeellll, that didn't work out for us.  I don't know how other races work, but there were a lot of people in the front who started at a slow walking pace, making it difficult for those wanting to jog/run.  It seriously took us about 2-3 minutes before we could even start our jog.


Once we got going though, we jogged longer than we had before.  There were times we had to stop and walk, but we jogged whenever we could.


The run itself was beautiful!  We ran right along the waterfront, so the view was magnificent!

To say there were a lot of people there is like telling you that Oprah is kind of rich.  The running lanes were packed!  We were weaving between people in order to keep our pace. 


As we approached the Finish Line, we definitely picked up speed and finished strong {my official time was 46:28}!!  Our families were there to greet us and take pictures.   As we crossed the Finish line, we received our medals and were ushered into a line to pick up food and drink. 

I was dying to get some pretzels and peanut butter {in my hand while taking this photo} in my stomach and chug down some coconut water.

After that, it was really confusing.  There was a huge Expo going on, but the lines were long and unorganized.  Nobody knew what the were in line for.  We thought we were in a line for the photo booth and it took about 5 minutes to realize that it was actually a wraparound line for the booth to get shirts & bags.  Funny thing is, that was the booth we just came from and there was no line.  Then the line to get chocolate & champagne {please remember, I ran for this pairing} was super long, but dissinagrated halfway through.  


I don't want to sweat about the small stuff, because in the scheme of things, this is small stuff, but I do think there were a lot of things the event organizers could have planned better for.  

One of the lines that seemed to end in the middle of a crowd!

Overall, I had one of the best times of my life!  I feel so accomplished...this was the first time in a LONG time that I set a personal goal, worked hard for it and did it, giving 110%.  I even brought the medal to work to show some of my coworkers! 


My quads hurt for hours after the race, but settled down in my knees on Monday and to a dull soreness overall by Tuesday.  I LOVE IT!  Makes me feel strong!


What now? 


My next 5k is a nighttime, glow-in-the-dark race near the end of September in San Jose and I have another one the week after that in Modesto. 


My goals for those are easy {in theory} -
1. Run {or jog} the whole thing!  No walking. 
2. Beat my time of 46:28.  I would like to get to under 40 minutes.


Two goals that I KNOW I can accomplish...shit, 6 months ago, I would have never thought I would run down the street, not to mention a 5k!


Doing the See Jane Run 5k showed me I can do anything I want and I am grateful for that!

Dee & I with our friend Susan, who is married to my brother's best friend....family by choice!  :)

I DID IT!!

I'll fill you in on ALL the deets later this week, but for now just know I completed my first 5k this morning!!!

I finished with my BFF right by my side...and DAMN, we finished strong!

Of course, my biggest supporter was there cheering me on & ready to CELEBRATE!

Cheers to all my running friends out there!  And to those of you that even have the slightest interest in running...sign up for a 5k.  You can do it...I PROMISE!