It's been a long time coming, but I finally ran my first 5k... the whole thing! My friend, Jessica, came up from Little Rock to run with me and it was so much fun to hang out with her and run together. Here's a picture of us before the race.
The race we ran is called the Poker Run. Each kilometer you run, you get a playing card. At the end, the person with the best poker hand wins a grand prize and the person with the worst poker hand also wins a prize. Guess who had the worst poker hand out of all the runners? This girl (they wrote our hands out on a card at the end)! I had 2, 3, 4, 5, 8 of different suits... pretty impressively awful hand if you ask me!
The weather was cold, but once I started running, it was perfect! I was surprised to have a whole cheering section at the finish line! My mom, Graham, my sister Lori, and my nieces Maggie and Marin were all cheering for me and it definitely gave me the energy to finish the last uphill stretch strong! My nieces even made the sweetest signs that said "You are the best!" and "Go Aunt Lyndsey!" I LOVED their signs; here's a picture of me running that last uphill stretch and then holding the signs afterward:
Because the race was more laidback, there wasn't official timing, but I made it across the finish line in around 28-29 minutes. My cheering squad got there right before the race began, so they saw all the finishers and told me I was somewhere around the 3rd female and 6th personal overall to cross the finish line. Not too shabby for my first 5k!
They also gave out door prizes and Jessica won one of those! Us with our glasses and prizes:
There were a bunch of prizes you could choose from. Free unlimited tanning for a month, a gift bag from the natural food store, a shirt and sunglasses from a boutique, restaurant gift cards. I chose 4 Naturals tickets. I get to choose the game I want to go to!
Jessica won her door prize later so there wasn't as much to choose from, but she got a nifty gift bag from the natural food store. It had tons of stuff in it!
Afterward, we celebrated with drinks and pizza. All in all, I had a great time and would even say it was fun! Considering that I've always said I don't like running, the fact that I enjoyed this was a surprise to me!
