#1 - Complete!

Wondering what topped my bucket list?  To be completely honest, this item evolved a few times before I had my list set in stone.  My initial #1 was to complete a marathon.  But the more I thought about it, the more discouraged I became.  I realized I would be spending all of my free time running - not a sacrifice I was willing to make.

Then I thought about doing the Hood to Coast relay.  This sounds awesome, and I would like to do it one year.  You work in teams of 8-12 to complete a 199 mile relay race.  But when I saw that the registration fee is $1400 and you have to average 9:45 min miles (or faster), I decided that this is not the race for me - at least not this year.

So I settled on a 5k.

Fremont Bridge from the Broadway Bridge (Summer 2012)

Only the race I discovered turned out to be a 10k.  The Bridge to Brews run started & ended at the Widmer brewery.  The cool thing about this run is that the course took us over the Fremont & Broadway bridges.  I get to walk over the Broadway Bridge everyday for my work commute, but the Fremont Bridge is closed to pedestrian traffic, so this was quite a treat.

This morning I laced up my sneakers and attempted a 6.2 mile run.  Let me back up and tell you that I only seriously started training for this about two months ago.  My longest training run was last Sunday when I did five miles, but I had to stop and walk after just 3.5 miles.  Needless to say, I wasn't too keen on the race today knowing that I could only run half the distance before needing to stop and walk.

I gave myself a little mental pep talk and said, "Heather, you did 3.5 miles last weekend.  Just get to 4.0 today and if you can do that, I promise you'll be able to do the whole thing."  I didn't believe it.  And when mile marker 3 came up and I was huffing and puffing, I thought there was no way I could finish.

Then I got to mile marker 4 and volunteers were standing around to cheer us on.  It gave me the little boost I needed to have a little faith in my earlier pep talk.

And I did it!  I jogged the entire thing without ever stopping to walk.  It was pretty amazing.  It took me an hour and 8 minutes which is right about what I was expecting - I planned on averaging 11-minute miles.  I'm quite proud of myself.

Now it's time to shower and get ready to cross off another bucket list item.  It's gonna be a double-header today.  :-)