So remember how a few posts ago, I mentioned that I registered for the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. Right well I didn't really remember either. I mean I knew the date was on the calendar, but I didn't specifically train for the race or anything like that.

My one and only goal for the race was to qualify for the National Half Marathon, which is in D.C. in March. In order to do that, I would have needed to complete the 5k in under 31 minutes. Frequent readers, you know I'm not the fastest and that I usually average between 11 or 12 minute miles.

Well guess what people? By some miracle/grace of God/stroke of luck I finished in something like 30:50 or 55ish. I forgot to stop my watch right away because I bumped into a friend in the finishers shoots, so my watch time read 30:57. (I'll update when the official race results are up.) Anyway, yea I totally qualified! I am pumped! So pumped that I wanted to call lots of people and tell them right away, but it was 8:30 in the morning and no college kid in their right mind is up that early. My mom was though, so I gave her a ring.

Overall, the race atmosphere rocked. There were 32,500 people either running or walking. How insane is that! They did a nice ceremony in the beginning to honor the breast cancer survivors and they had a fitness instructor from a local gym lead a warm up and stretch to get us ready and then we were off.

The first mile I started off too fast, but it was hard not too as it was downhill for a bit. Then it kicked back up hill and flattened for a little. I hit mile marker 1 at 10:11. That made me a little nervous. I didn't want to be going so fast that I bonked at the end. I tried to slow it up a little bit. I hit mile marker 2 at either 20:10 or 20:20. I can't quite remember. I was pretty pumped about that and knew that if I could keep that pace I'd be okay to finish in under 31.

But then mile three happened and it was hilly and it was mean and it seemed like it was never going to end. I kept looking frantically at my watch trying to scope out the finish line, but I wasn't seeing it anywhere. When my watch read 29 minutes, and I still couldn't see it, I was thinking qualifying wasn't going to happen.

Then I heard this mom say to her son, "The finish line's just ahead do you want to sprint?" I was like if you say so lady and I took off. My legs felt like bricks, but I was going to finish in under 31 minutes. When I finally saw the official race clock it said 30:44, and I was still a bit of a ways out. So I sprinted harder and managed to cross at something between 30:50 and 30:55.

So I'm elated that I qualified for National and I'm stoked because that's definitely a PR.

Quick Octapolluza update:
Worked out every day this week (optional rest day on Tuesday)
Strength trained once.
Continued not eating sweets.
Two weeks down. Two to go!