Racing with 8500 other Runners

My race on Saturday was interesting....   I had a busy day before the big event which started at 5:10pm. 

 I woke up super early in 'Joy world", 7am yikes!  I got maybe four hours sleep but I was excited to go to The Great Glebe Garage Sale with my sister.  For those of you who don't live in Ottawa it's the largest garage sale in the city.  There is blocks and blocks of stuff for sale, it's awesome!   My sister and I  have been going for a few years now and its amazing how much hidden treasures you can find.  Its a whole experience, seeing the adorable kids selling lemonade and cookies.  Listening to spunky old men playing brass,  watching a man tap dance to get buyers attention.  If you are ever in Ottawa I highly recommend it.   After a few hours we left with all of our goodies and I dropped my sister off at my moms.  Then I raced to my friends house who was hosting a baby shower for one of our friends. My two friends who hosted did an amazing job and there was a lot healthy food options which was an added bonus.   After the shower I went home to take a quick nap.  Then Rob and I jumped on a bus to get to the race.  At this point my stomach was in knots.   We got there in plenty of time.   I gave Rob a quick kiss and headed to the start line. This year, the start line was in a different place.   At this point I started to panic,  I had no idea where it was???  Thankfully it was close by and I sighed in relief. 

 

 

Found it!!

 

 

 There was two waves, the faster runners at 5pm and the slower runners  at 5:10pm.  I was part of the 5:10 group.    The race started and it was slow moving for the first 1/4km.  I started all the apps I use when I run (couch to 5km, Songza and the Nike app). Of course the Nike app wouldn't work which was a huge bummer because I could not see what pace I was going.   About 5 minutes into the race one of my shoelaces came undone.  I almost didn't want to stop but since I was running with 8500 people I decided it might be a good idea. At the 3.5km mark I saw my sister, mom and step dad with a sign cheering me on!   It was so special to see them there for me :).  I zoomed by them and about 2 minutes later I saw two of my friends encouraging me to keep running.  I was very touched they came especially since they were the ones who had hosted the baby shower earlier.    The last km was tough.  500 metres before the finish line my Rob was there with a big smile on his face telling me to book it to the finish line.  All and all it was great.   I was disappointed with my time. 47:23 I really wanted to be under 45 mins.   When I was training the fastest I  ran was 40 minutes.   I know I will beat my time next race!  On a positive note I run it 3 minutes faster compared to last year.  

 

 

 

Post Race
 

 

In other news I lost 2.7 pounds this week.    That's a total of 5.2 pounds for the month of May.  I am super happy with this :). 

On a totally different topic I messaged Jillian Michaels on Instagram  to tell her how happy I was with her show.  And she messaged me back!!  How exciting is that!!  

 

 

 

I hope everyone is having a great week!  

Has anyone ever used the couch to 5km app?? If so what did you use afterwards??  I have four more runs and I am looking for another great training app.

Thanks for reading.