The Basement 5k

In Early 2007 I decided that it was time to take take my health seriously and lose weight. And so I set the goal that I was going to run a 5k. Ken bought me a treadmill for Valentines Day (I love it, so it was a great Valentines gift). I trained for 5 month and lost about 25 pounds. On July 4th 2007 I ran a 5k. It was pretty fun, the race ran along a parade route and there were many people waiting for the parade to start who cheered for us. I felt like if I always had someone cheering for me, I could always run that far, after all 3.2 miles is pretty far for me. I was very tired the week after the 5k and never had the energy to run, it was just a few days after that that I found out I was pregnant.

Well 358 days have gone by since my last 5k and today I ran one again- I call it "the Basement 5k" because that is where it took place, on my valentines treadmill, in the basement. But unlike most peoples basement 5ks, mine had cheering fans! Ken picked up his niece and one of her friends from Especially for Youth at BYU and they came down to the basement just as I hit 2.25 miles, they cheered for me and encouraged me and then left me to complete the rest of my race (after all, watching someone run on a treadmill really isn't that exciting).

It took me 45 minutes total which is about the same pace I ran last year. I feel pretty good about that, I feel like I am going to be able to improve my speed and distance and hopefully my weight too. It was the beginning of this month that I realized the baby was taking naps that were long enough to give me time to run a good distance. It was also at the beginning of this month that I realized that I weighed the same amount as I did at the beginning of 2007. So I started to run, and unlike last year it only took me a few weeks to be able to run a 5k. I want to keep it up, I want to continue to run and get faster, and I hope that I can re-lose that 25 pounds and maybe even 25 more, then I will be healthy and strong and maybe, just maybe, with the next pregnancy I will have energy to run or at least waddle fast.