HILLS...MY FRIENDS AND MY FOES

Today was my first official 5K walk. My goal was to complete it and I achieved that goal--I didn't even come in last! All the ladies ahead of me have belonged to the Road Runners for years and have done the Indy Mini multiple times. Aunt Therese led the entire time. It is amazing how quickly those little legs of hers can move.

The race started at the top of this huge hill up in Shrine Hill. I was able to jog down the entire hill w/o feeling exersion. It was great, I felt like I could go all day long. My "strategy" so to speak was to jog until winded then walk until rested. I especially took advantage of the flat lengths of road and the down hill slopes to jog. The incline of the hills were a killer, especially that first one I enjoyed on my way down because I had to climb back up it to get to the finish line.

Aunt Therese introduced me to a lot of the ladies. Everyone was soooo nice and encouraging. They all seemed to be thrilled that I was going to be participating in the Trained In Terre Haute this winter to prepare for the Mini.

The only thing that I would change about today was that I was so excited and nervous I forgot to stop and get my protein shake on the way to registration. Therefore, I did the race on an empty stomach. I really think I will perform better in the future when I eat something first. With all that said I did finish 7 seconds quicker than last Saturday's Heart Walk. It amazed me, with all the jogging that I did, that my time wasn't better than that. I'm not going to be hard on myself b/c those hills were tough and slowed me down quite a bit.

The ladies told me that those are the hills that they use to train on for the race. Aack! I was hoping it would be at least another year before that hill and I came into contact again.