Training for Mother's Day

Mother's Day is almost here. I have been training since last year and we will soon see if those efforts have paid off. Will I be blowing noses?, you ask. Or finding lost shoes? Or creating nutritious and delicious meals?? No, I will be running. It is the perfect Mother's Day activity. And it is actually a 5km race for breast cancer I will be participating in. Note the word "participating", not "racing". I tried racing in my first running event last June, and it was a disaster. It was a midnight race on the summer solstice, just me in the lonely dark with 300 of my closest friends. A very cool event, by the way. The disaster part was purely personal. It all came down to an incorrect assessment of my talents. There I was, at the start with two good friends, ready to enjoy a leisurely run for fun. 5km, that's about 3.3 miles and anyone can do that, right? Well, the gun went off and the spirit grabbed me. I took off like a gazelle with lots of speedy and leggy people. It felt good. It felt great! I was running, it was dark, and all these people were running with me. I usually run alone and had pictured racing on my own too. It was much more fun with tons of people. Unfortunately I lost my friends and could not figure out if they were ahead of me or behind me. But it did not really matter because I was RUNNING and it felt great. For at least three minutes I was on top of the world. And then reality joined me on the run. My heart rate started to be prominent in my ears and my lungs decided they were about done with this running stuff. My legs began to remind me that I had never actually been a runner and had not trained for this event. I had a brief moment of iron will and determination that I WOULD keep running, and then I caved. The walk/run began. The fast runners moved off ahead, with hearts and lungs in tact, and many more began to pass me from behind. I walked, tried more running, and walked again. I found my friends, or rather they found me, after several disheartening minutes as I chugged along. I had dropped them like bad habits at the start, but their pacings paid off. Sam buzzed on past, not wanting to walk for fear of giving up the run. Fair enough. Sara came along a few minutes later and encouraged me to quit the "poor me" walking and run at a nice slow and steady pace. To my protests she said, "You can do it!". So, I did. Even up the one hill. I could not have done it without her pacing me and keeping me going. It felt great to finish, and I had learned a valuable lesson. Pacing. I also realized there was another missing piece. Consistency. So I started training. And I have continued training, with those words foremost in my mind. Pacing and Consistency.

And now I have the second running race of my adult life. The Mother's Day race. Another 5km. This time I trained. This time I have an excellent heart rate monitor to wear. This time I will pace myself. This time I may not even have to walk. We shall see...