Dart for the Arts 5K Results

I participated in the Elkhart Dart for the Arts 5K on Saturday morning. All proceeds raised went towards the Lerner Theater Project.

Kelly and I went over on Friday night to pick up our pre-registered packets, which included our numbers, map, T-shirt, a pen, hand sanitizer and a packet of Light Multi-Grain English Muffins. I thought getting the muffins was kind of cool! (Gonna have one for breakfast tomorrow, because I was too brain dead this morning to think of it.) It was really fun talking to Kelly about what to expect in the race on the way over.

We got to the race around 7:15 and met up with Susan (who was entering also) and Rachel. Rachel got to knit while we were racing and I don't think that was fair. I know a 5K is about 3.3 miles, but let me tell you when its your first 5K ever, it's a lot longer than you realize. We wound our way around Elkhart's Riverwalk area. I think we crossed bridges over the river at least 4 times.

Walking on the treadmill is not a true indication of how fast you will walk. The treadmill moves you along and not necessarily at your own pace either. Based on my time on the treadmill, I estimated that I would finish somewhere between 45-60 minutes. My finishing time was 52 mins 34 secs, which I am satisfied with for my first attempt. My overall ranking was 116 out of 119 finishers. The timing guy said that 161 people had registered for the race, so I should say 116 out of 161, but well that doesn't seem right.

As you can see from my ranking, I was not the last person to cross the finish line. I was pretty bummed when I realized I had fallen to the back of the pack. There were 3 ladies ahead of me, then me, then the guy on the scooter who brought up the rear. The scooter guy told us as we hit the second turn from the end, that it was time to sprint from here. I said yeah right. He said he was game, to which I replied "get off the scooter and we'll see." Sorry, I was tired. He didn't want to do that, because he said he didn't think he would be able to do a 5K. Anyway, as we came around the last corner I decided to run across the finish line; because Kelly told me I had too! Well actually I decided that since I had signed up for the 5K RUN, I should probably run across the finish line. And no I did not sprint past the 3 ladies that were ahead of me. That would have been cool, but the truth is they stopped to chat with people in the crowd. I didn't think much of that, because you only got a timing chip if you signed up for the 5K Run, not the 5K Walk. So I crossed the finish line and told the guy that was collecting the timing chips that I was the last one. So basically he could start packing up. But when I bent down to take off the timing chip, the 3 ladies realized that they hadn't crossed the finish line and came jogging up behind me. YEAH I wasn't the last one!! Small victory but I'LL TAKE IT!!!

Pictures

I wasn't sure if Blogger was going to let me upload my pictures today or not. It does not like Photobucket for whatever reason. Or maybe PB just doesn't like Blogger. I know I don't like PB, but my phone won't let me upload them to Flickr, which I would prefer.

Anyway, here are a few photos of current projects. At retreat last weekend, I worked on my Ocean Waves quilt. I decided to do it as a "quilt as you go" project. I have the first 2 rows quilted and sewn together. Here's the front side of the 2 rows. (FYI, it's more neon than what the photo shows)

Here's a picture of the back side. You can see the seem where I sewed the 2 rows together. The loose blue fabric will get hand stitched down over the seem to hide it.

The quilting is pretty simple, but close enough to work.

And here is the progress I've made knitting my Slinky Rib Tee. I just finished the ribbing on the body and am knitting straight stockinette now. It's going so much faster.

This weekend is going to be so packed. Tomorrow morning, I'm walking my 5K. I had wanted to run it. And I just HATE admitting that my dad was right when he said my ankle couldn't take it. I have a 22 year old injury that limits its mobility. And it just ached all the time when I was running. You know, I don't know about you, but I really don't like it when someone tells me I can't do something. I need to figure that out for myself. Who knows, I just might be able to do it.

After the 5K, I'm heading to Vicki's house for a Fiber Frolic. For those of you who don't know what that is, it's several hours dedicated to fun, fiber (yarn, wool, roving) and food. I'm taking a spinach salad.

And if that's not enough, after the Fiber Frolic I'm head to Lily's house for more fun and food. Doubt there will be any fiber there. At least not the kind that I can knit. :o) She's talking about dinner and possibly a bonfire if the weather holds. Which it looks like it will.

Thank God I don't have to be to work on Sunday until noon!

I'm Tired!

I'm beat today. I could definitely crawl in bed for a hour or two nap. I completed my second workout of week 1 on the Couch to 5K program last night.

Before I started it though, I had a health assessment meeting with James at health club. They checked my blood pressure, weight, cholesterol, you know the normal things I would expect. Then he made me walk a mile to determine how long I would take. OK no big deal right. Well, took me 20 minutes to do 10 laps on their indoor track. But THEN, THEN he wanted to know how many push-ups I could do in 1 minute. HUH!?!? WHAT!?! I have never been good at push-ups. As a kid I once did 100 sit-ups because my brother bet me I couldn't do it. Could barely stand up straight the next day, but I did it. But push-ups, nope. I barely and I mean barely did 11 of them. Really not sure if that 11th one should have counted but he did count it therefore I'm claiming it.

After the push-up torture, I ran my second C25K workout. It was a little easier this time because Susan told me about an App for my phone that is geared specifically for the workout. So I loaded a bunch of music on my phone to use it as a MP3 Player and then ran the app. It dings me every time I need to switch from run to walk. Was a lot easier than watching the timer on the treadmill.

Tomorrow, I'm planning on running around the neighborhood or something. Kelly was telling Susan that we shouldn't just run on the treadmill. But I guess it will depend on the weather. If it's not raining I want to go early in the morning before it gets hot. It's supposed to be cooler on Sunday, so I may do it then instead.

Couch to 5K

This weekend while I was at Faith's Baby Shower, several interesting topics came up.

The first made me chuckle but also start thinking about my own life. Amy was talking about "30 things she wanted to do before she turned 30." Now here's the part that made me chuckle. She said she just had things she wanted to do before she got old. Those were not her exact words, but that was the gist of them. When she said that I looked at Faith and kind of rolled my eyes. Faith chuckled too and told me "she doesn't mean you are old." I know she didn't mean anything. She was referring to herself and the things she wanted to accomplish in her own life.

But it made me start thinking about my own life. Several of our mutual friends have been doing a similar list "101 things to do in 1001 days." For me, that was way more than I wanted to commit to even though there are no 'size' requirements on the 101 list of items. It could be as small as making your bed every day for a month or knitting 1 project out of every book you own, or reading Pride and Prejudice. Or as large as running a Marathon. But the whole reference to "things I want to do before....." caught my attention. I've been thinking for awhile about certain things that I want to do or experience with my life.

Another conversation that caught my eye was Susan telling us about this program that she just started. It's called Couch to 5K. The idea is to transform yourself from couch potato to runner. After 2 months you should be ready to run a 5K (3 miles). You start of the first week alternating running for 60 seconds with walking for 90 seconds. You do this for 20 minutes 3 times. The second week you run a little longer, and so on until you are up to your 8th week and running 3 miles. Now depending on your degree of potatoness, you may choose to repeat a week or two. After thinking about it, I decided I wanted to do it too.

I've looked up 5K's in our area, hoping for something around the end of September, beginning to middle of October. At first, all I could find were 2 on September 18th and the next one wasn't until Oct 31. But I have since found one in Elkhart on October 9th. Gonna email the girls and see what they think of this one. I say girls, because Kelly said she would run also. Not run with us, since she could leave us in the dirt, but be there to cheer us on. Which I think would be great. Kelly has been very encouraging. She just started running a year ago and has already run several triathlons and a 1/2 marathon. So you see what I mean by leaving us in the dirt.

Anyway, to make a long story short. I finished by first workout last night. Now that I am an Memorial employee, I get a major discount towards a membership at Memorials Health and Lifestyles Center. They have an excellent gym and pool. I was a little stiff this morning, but not nearly as bad as I thought. I did realize that as I was writing up the description I did unintentionally cut my exercise program short. I did the 5 minute warmup walk, then began my running. I was supposed to run for 20 minutes, but I only did 15 because I was looking at the treadmill clock and saw the 20 minutes and thought yeah I did it! Susan told me about an App for my phone that I could use or I found some Podcasts that play music plus tell you when to run/walk. Have to get those set up on my phone.

I called my parents last night to tell them what I was doing. I should have known what my Dad's reaction would be. His immediate reply was "YOU CAN'T DO THAT." Nothing gets my back up more than him telling me I can't do something. For those of you who don't know it, I was in a car accident 22 yrs ago that messed up my left ankle pretty badly. It has no radial movement and limited up/down movement. However I have noticed that when I exercise my ankle, it actually loosens up and works better. I told him that I know my limitations. If my ankle starts to be a problem, then I will walk the whole damn 5K if I have to. While the running I did last night did make my ankle ache a bit, I wore my ankle brace to bed and it was fine this morning.