Triumph!

Last weekend I ran my first ever 5k.

The closest thing I had ever done previously were the duathlons, which had 5k of running broken into two parts by a 10k bike ride. So, Saturday's event was the first time I had ever attempted running 5 consecutive kilometres. Granted, "running" is probably a generous stretch of terminology -- slow jogging would be a far more apt description. Nonetheless, I finished in less than 40 minutes (a good target for beginners) and only had to walk for about three quarters of a K. At about 3.5K, I started seeing spots, so I had to slow down… until I saw the "1 K left!" sign. I ran from there, but allowed myself 200 paces of walking when the spots and dizziness returned. My finish was strong, though, and even left me with ample energy to do errands in the afternoon.

The rest of the afternoon was great. I dropped off my coat for a dry-cleaning, tried out a fantastic new teahouse, picked up some art supplies for my newest project, then topped it all off with ordering a pizza and watching horror movies. I don't generally like horror movies, but since Dave openly detests them, my ideal opportunity to watch them is when he's out of town. Unfortunately, both were duds -- 28 Weeks Later was a perfect example of everything that's wrong with Hollywood-ized movies, and Perfume: The Story of a Murderer destroyed its riveting first half with a positively awful second half. The evening was subsequently redeemed with a friends' housewarming party, which ended around 2AM with my friends and I pushing each other into snowbanks. Good times!

All told, I enjoyed the run so much that I'm already looking into upcoming 5k events. It seems there is about one per month from now until October. Frankly, I'm happy as long as it involves less snow; running in the snow seems entirely too hardcore for my taste. Thank goodness this race had closed down the (cleared) road, as running on snowed-in bike trails would have been a nightmare.

And maybe, next time, Dave can join me! ;-) (No pressure, hon…hehehe)