I spent the last seven weeks following the Couch to 5k program to get back into running and prepare for the Battle of the Bands 5k. I hit a few bumps along the way, but when I woke up on Saturday morning for the race I felt prepared. Unfortunately I’d spent the end of last week fighting off a cold, so that part of me wasn’t feeling so hot when I headed out for the race.

Thankfully this race was right around the corner from my house so I was able to sleep in later than I usually am on race day. I made sure that everything was ready to go for race day when I went to bed on Friday night so that all I had to do when the alarm went off was get dress. I took a little cold medicine and my vitamins before heading out the door.

Holy hotness batman! At 7:00 am it was already over 80 degrees and the humidity was at 96%. Apparently mother nature has forgotten that fall starts next week. Even though we are well into September, this had to be one of the hottest days that we have had this year. I could feel the sweat running down my back before the race even started. Great.

My plan for the race was to run until the crowds cleared out and then do the intervals that I’d been training with the last two months. It took me about five minutes of running before I was feeling comfortable enough to start my intervals. Thankfully I felt GREAT during those first five minutes. I started my intervals and next thing I knew I was at mile 1 – woo hoo! I was under my previous 14 minutes mile, but I knew that I was bound to start slowing down.

Mile 2 was a bit slower and by the time I started mile 3 I was running out of steam. I was starting to feel the cold I was fighting and the heat was really starting to get to me. My goal for that last 1.1 miles was to finish. I didn’t care if I walked, ran, or crawled as long as I was moving forward. I walked most of that last mile and I was totally okay with that.

I ended up finishing with all 3 of my miles under 13 minutes and I was SO proud of myself. I was finally starting to feel a bit more like myself. After that race I didn’t stick around for very long because I was just so hot. The race entry included two beers, so I decided to at least get one of them. I grabbed my beer and about halfway through I just wasn’t feeling it, so I called it good and headed home.

After my shower I may have gone back to bed for awhile, but I feel like after doing my first 5k in over 5 months with a cold I deserved a little nap. I’m really happy with how things went on Saturday and I’m looking forward to signing up for my next race. I’d love to be able to improve my time on the 5k distance before moving on to a 10k, but we shall see. I know I’ll be doing a couple of 10k races in the beginning of the year, so I may work on other things until then.