Challenge Jog 12 - 5k RECORD TIME!!!

This morning I pulled myself out of bed at the ungodly hour of 6am so that I could support one of the student organizations on campus who was hosting their first charity 5k. They were raising money for a good cause (an organization that provides educational afterschool care for children in need). I figured that I would need to do a 5k that day anyways so I might as well get a t-shirt for it. Of course, I would have much prefered that it be held a little later. However, because of the time the weather was really nice. No too hot,just really humid. That though can't be helped. When I got there, I was disheartened to see that there was only a small handful of people participating. I was logged in as runner #10. (Of course, I still and most likely will never consider myself a runner - I prefer to jog. It is less fast and competitive.) When the student registering me gave me my number I joked with her that my number was fitting because I would be the last place jogger. She reassuringly told me that we are not competing with each other, but only with ourselves. I responded with, "Oh that is for sure. I already consider myself a winner because I got up early enough to be here. I am worried only with finishing." Which is totally true. I am self-aware enough to know that despite my fairly successful forray into jogging, I am by no means an athlete. I say that, but when I got started on the 5k a small amount of competitive spirit awakened inside me. I didn't want to be last. Winning, or anything close to that would be a ridiculously unrealistic goal, but not losing didn't seem like such a bad idea. But from the start I was about a minute behind the two girls closest to me. An 8 year old boy took off like a bullet from a gun, the 60-something year old man who registered right after me was much closer to the kid than to me. Thankfully, for my fragile ego's sake, one of the women who had been well ahead of me started at a faster pace than she could maintain and ended up having to walk for awhile, which allowed me to pass her. I am not sure why it matters, but coming in 10th out of 11 joggers some how feels better than coming in 11th. Plus, I totally called my place before the race even started. I wouldn't want to make a liar out of myself. :) The best part of the whole experience though, was the fact that I set a new personal record time!!!! I completed the 5k in 33:23 minutes!!!!! That is almost 3 minutes faster than the 5k I completed just the day before and approxiametly 5 minutes faster than my Race for the Cure time!!! :) :) :)