Monday, April 15, 2013

Race Recap: Joanna's Barefoot 5k

Hello all!

This weekend was filled with amazingly awesome except for a little bit of a lack of sleep because I was too busy!

Saturday morning my fiance and I got up around 6:45am (Ugh..whhhhyy??) to run in a charity 5k that we found for a charity called Joanna's Barefoot 5k for  Samaritan's Feet. All proceeds from the race were going to be used locally in Charlotte to buy shoes for low income children that couldn't afford them. Also, people were asked to donate tennis shoes to the cause - unfortunately since we decided with about 1 days notice that we were going to do this race, we didn't supply any shoes.

Anyway, I realized when we were about halfway there that I forgot my inhaler and that because it was a road race we couldn't use headphones which made me a little bit worried. I was thinking "Oh great, so not only am I not going to be able to breath after a mile but I can't even try to motivate myself with music!" I figured it was too late to do anything about it so I will just try anyway. The race was smaller - maybe about 50-75 people running it and some of them doing it barefoot for the cause!

My fiance and I talked a little bit on the first mile and my breathing seemed pretty steady and before I knew it we were passing the 1st mile marker and Dwayne looked at his watch and said "Wow, we are doing a 7:45 pace." I was absolutely floored because I thought without my inhaler anything faster than a 9:30 mile would cause a never ending cycle of wheezing and side cramps. That gave me motivation to see what I could do and I realized that the course had a lot of slight downward slopes which definitely helped with recovery! I ended up realizing at the 2nd mile marker that I thought I was in 3rd place!

I knew there were 2 other women in front of me and so I decided to try and pick up the pace just a little in the 3rd mile and see if I could pass the girl in 2nd. The girl in 1st place was a monster, tri-athlete and I am pretty sure she ended with like a 21 minute time so there was no way that was happening but 2nd place was attainable!

I ended up finishing the race officially with a 24:48 completion time for the 5k which was enough to win Women's 2nd place overall. I ended up winning a giftcard to buy some new running equipment. All in all, a wonderful experience for a great cause!

 
For more information on Samaritan's Feet you can visit the website https://www.samaritansfeet.org/