Dead Last!

The goal was to finish, not finish first or last – just finish. I am so grateful to say that I completed my first 5K this morning. In the rankings I was dead last (727 of 727) – there were a handful of people who finished after me but the organizers were already taking the equipment down. I’m going to work really hard to forget about being last as it doesn’t even matter.

What matters is that prior to today I had only jogged 1.5 miles. Today I jogged 3.125 miles (thanks Kevin for the mileage clarification). That is my personal best. It took me 1:02:34. I need to remind myself that means I jogged for over 1 hour without stopping. I wanted to be faster, but what matters is that I did it! I finished!  I have failed at so many other things…but not at this. It was pretty magnificent having my little one waiting for me with a medal at the finish line. Her words were the best, “Mommy, in my heart you finished first.”

I won’t lie and say that this was easy. Pushing myself 30 minutes longer than I’d ever been in one day was huge, but I had a ton of support. I want to thank Todd Lange at Running Mate Media for a terrific training program called 5K101 which prepared me for today’s race, my training partners Chipo & Kern Jolibois who encouraged me to get started, supported me along the way and were right there with me at the finish line, the Smith family for friendship, music and loads of encouragement and my family and friends who have been cheering me on via social media sites.

I didn’t expect the outpouring of support from the other runners. It was the one thing that had me close to sobbing during the race. Most of the runners were on their way back when I was still heading down to the halfway point. The were calling out encouragement and cheering for me to keep going. Instead of being embarrassed at being slow I was uplifted. It was a humbling and beautiful experience. Today I became a part of the running community.

My training partners have thrown down a challenge of 10 – 5k’s this year…so this is just the beautiful and exhausting beginning. Now it’s time to take a much-needed and well-earned nap.

A Beautiful Night for Love

As a divorcee, I find that weddings can be a mixed bag. You are usually attending because you know that bride or groom and hopefully have some fondness for them. It’s been about four years since my marriage ended. I remember the first few weddings I attended after the break up being pretty difficult to handle. I was happy for the couple, but all I could think about was the failure of my marriage.

It can be hard to celebrate someone’s happiness when you are in the midst of despair. One constant in life is that people will keep falling in love and some are going to get married (thankfully). Tonight I didn’t notice any of the sadness or negative reflections about my previous life. I was so squarely focused on my happiness for my friend. She’s a beautiful woman who deserves a tremendous love story. That’s my wish for her and her new husband.

For me? I was happy that I wasn’t going into it in man searching mode.  You know, where you think…maybe I’ll meet someone nice here. Tonight I wanted to have a good time, and I did. I connected with old friends, danced a bunch and faced down an obscene amount of delicious food. The love story was a beautiful one. What more could you ask for?

As I type this I think of the ending scene in the movie My Best Friend’s Wedding where George tells Jules, “…Life goes on.’ Maybe there won’t be marriage. Maybe there won’t be sex. But by God, there will be dancing!”

…and so there was.