I survived!

Remember a mere 2 months ago, when I ran my first 5k? 

Yesterday, my good friend Jenn and I met at 6:00 am to go do to the "grandfather" of all races, the Hospital Hill race. If you've lived in KC long, you've heard about the HH race. Or rather, you've heard of the 3 h's--heat, hills and humidity. All three were present yesterday, even at 6:00 am. The hills were as bad as they said..only a little bit was downhill!

We met the other 7500 people at Crown Center, snapped this picture before we started.

We stayed together through the whole race. It was nice to have someone to talk to, to make fun of people we saw on the sidelines or racing, etc. I've trained a tad more than Jenn and probably could have gone faster, but I'm glad I didn't. With the heat and hills, I probably would have ended up with heat exhaustion from running too fast.

When we got close to the finish, she tried to stop and walk. I literally grabbed her by the arm and forced her to run across the finish. I said, "You can't walk the finish! We've ran 3 miles, let's go!" She said later people on the sidelines were laughing at us.

Here we are after the race, after 2 water bottles, a banana (for her) and a cheese stick (for me) and some rest on the steps. We then went and got our free flip flops, skipped the free beer and free bbq, and headed home.

I can now say that I've done the biggest race in Kansas City, the Hospital Hill run. Will I do it again? Probably. Depends on the weather. 85 degrees at 7:00 am (race time) isn't fun...a crazy high humidity percentage isn't fun either.

Last night I reserved some books on running from the library, and am thinking about training for a 1/2 marathon in October. Verdict is still out on if I'll actually do it.  Got a couple 5k's I want to do between now and then.

Either way, I have grudgingly began to enjoy running.