Good morning, and happy Monday. Hope your week is starting out great!
Today I wanted to share my experience of my first BARC (Bay Area Runner’s Club) St. Patrick’s Day 5k which just so happened to also be the day of the second dance competition of the year for the studio I teach at. The competition happened to be in the same city, how convenient!
So for those of you that don’t know, I’m a bit competitive. When I was invited to run in the event with Matt’s family, my first thought was, “Oh it’s on, I’m gonna beat Matt.” Then, I saw everyone’s times from previous years, took a step back, and had second thoughts like, “Oh, I’m going to have to work for this one.” With paces around 8 – 8 ½ minutes I about gave up hope., pretty sure my last few races had me at a pace of 9 minutes or so. At this point, I had about 3 months or so to train, and that’s exactly what I was going to do, train really hard and work on my times. Well, training started out great with running 7:46 miles (which this year still wouldn’t have been enough to beat Matthew) but ran into a speed bump. A knee injury speed bump. (Pun Intended). I tried for WEEKS to run, even just once a week to see if I could get in more that just a mile or so, nope wasn’t happening. Usually when I hit mile one, or shortly after, I got an intense pain in my left knee and it forced me to stop running. Bummer. And trust me, I didn’t take this well. How was I going to run, let alone beat anyone if I had a bum knee and couldn’t train at all?! Well, let’s just say I wasn’t happy at all, even going into race day.
So, the day of, I woke up and started out my day with a yummy avocado. Coffee didn’t sound too great before running, so we stopped and picked up the next best thing, Hydrive Energy Water (if you haven’t tried these yet, I highly suggest you do).
With the race starting at 11:30 we arrived around 11. Parking in the area was crazy, SO many people. I’m pretty sure we made our own parking spot… The 8k that took place earlier that day had about 1,000 entries, the 5k run had just under 3,300 entries (many who ran the 8k also ran the 5k), and just under 1,200 for the 5k walk… What I’m try to say here is that there were A LOT of people in the area, haha.
We arrived and met up with everyone with just enough time to get ready, take a few pictures, and get ready to run!
So remember that whole competitive thing I was talking about? And being all upset because I was injured and would most likely be walking 2/3 of the race… yeah, well… not only did I finish the race running the whole time, I hit a PR for my 5k time. Imagine that. I finished 12th in my age group with a time of 25:40; only 10 seconds slower than Matt’s little brother, Evan, and 1 minute and 43 seconds slower than Matt. So close, and with a bad knee! (Still recovering from that and haven’t run since… :/ )
Post Race Pictures!
Matt and I both reppin’ the Adidas Rocket Boost!
Yeah, we’re that couple that has matching shoes…
I couldn’t stay to hang out or go out for lunch because I had a few dancers to go take care of!
Shout out to Matt’s step mom, Robin, for most of the pictures so far!!!
I headed over to the hotel where the competition was taking place in order to get changed and find out how things were going.
I had planned to take more pictures of the day, take pictures of awards, have lots to talk about, but honestly, once things got rolling, the day was so fast paced!
Check out some of the photos I was able to take, stole from others on social media, and found on my phone after my students got a hold of it!
The kids did amazing and I was proud of how hard they worked no matter how long of a day they had or what illnesses they had or were coming down with. We have a group of GREAT kids that’s for sure!
This was the competition that finished out my first season as an instructor for competitive numbers. I am so proud of what my students accomplished and I am happy to have taken the opportunity to teach them, I learned so much! I hope in the future I am able to create more pieces to have beautiful dancers perform. Until then, we look forward to our recital in June!!
That’s all for today! Enjoy your week and stay happy! 😀
