Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans 10k

Today, all across the country, folks are running.  Now, I know people run all the time, but today is a bit different.  We are all running "together" as part of the 2nd Annual Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans Virtual 5k!  This 5k was envisioned (is that the right word?) as a way to get people who wouldn't ordinarily take up running to try something outside of their comfort zone.  This is also the weekend that 5 of my favorite people in the world are running at Disney World in Orlando!  Dr. Mo ran the 1/2 marathon this morning (you RAWK, Monique!) and Kirsten, Brooke and Christie O are all running their very first ever MARATHONS tomorrow!!!! My IRL friend Shawn is running the GOOFY (that's the 1/2 mary today and the full tomorrow)!  I wanted to run this weekend to honor them.

Many ladies and gentlemen started training back in November, I think it was, to run this 5k with Shrinking Jeans.  Now, you might be wondering why my title says "10k".  Easy, I'm a crazy overachiever!  Actually, I had originally planned on doing a 1/2 marathon distance today with a friend who is training for a marathon (she ran 15 miles this afternoon-Go Angie!), but injury and a bit of running burnout squashed those plans about 2 months ago.

Thea, Beki and I all decided we would run our 5 and 10k's "together" at 11:00 EST.  (We needed to wait for west coast Beki to wake up!)  All of us fired up our iPods and took off - Thea in Maryland, me in Michigan, and Beki in Cali!  My thoughts all along were to do my 6.2 on the treadmill (Dude, I live in MICHIGAN), but I decided to suck it up (especially after dropping some coin at the running store on cold weather gear yesterday) and run mine outside.

Here I am before my run.  Like all the snow?

The weather was cold (wind chills around 5 degrees) but it was so sunny out.  I'd wished I'd remembered to wear some sunglasses!  Luckily, my hat kept the glare out of my eyes.  I had plotted a route last night because I knew I didn't want to bring my iPhone with me on this run last time I ran with it in 20 degree weather the GPS froze and I love my baby too much to chance it.  I loaded Mike's iPod with a playlist and headed off down the street.  I live in a community that plows its sidewalks, but they don't get done every day and it snowed again last night, so the sidewalks were pretty covered with snow.  It wasn't too bad to run in (think running on the beach, I was!) but my ankles, calves and knees felt it almost immediately.  I also knew this was going to be one slow-ass run.  My route took me along the main roads that circle my neighborhood - twice.  I didn't want to carry a water bottle, so I had Mike meet me back at the entrance to our neighborhood at about the 1/2 way point.  I also treated myself to two cherry sport beans (Mike got them for me for Christmas) every 20 minutes.  I "ran" then entire time except for when I was getting beans out of my pockets or waiting for cars to pass. A few times I hopped off the sidewalk and ran in the street to give my poor ankles a break.  My new duds kept me toasty warm (I was a little too warm at one point, until the wind picked up again) and my skin was much less red than my last outside run.  I finished my 6.3 mile route (yah, overachiever went an extra .1 mile) in 1 hour 14 minutes.  I averaged an 11:50 pace, which is slow for me, but I'll take it considering I was trying not to fall for over an hour!

I celebrated with a Guinness :)

I thought a lot about my girls running Disney this weekend, Beki and Thea running *next to me*, all the other sisters running possibly their first 5k's this weekend, and how far I've come since last year at this time.  I became a runner in 2010.  My goal for 2011 is to go faster, harder, better, stronger.  Today certainly wasn't "faster" but was harder and in the long run (pun intended) will make me better and stronger!

Love to all my peeps running 5k's, 1 mile, a block, 13.1 miles and 26.2 miles this weekend.  You ALL make me stronger!