Will run for Chocolate!!

I ran my first race today at the Hot Chocolate 5K in Chicago, IL! It was a LOT of fun! It was actually my first time running outside... I'm very much an in the gym, on the treadmill kind of girl! So, I was shooting for 17 minute mile pace, thinking that was a safe bet!

The race started out COLD!!! Temps were in the low 30s pretty much the whole race with the sun just showing up over the buildings by the 7:40 start! Luckily there wasn't much in the wind category (THANK GOD!)!!

We started pretty far back since it was broken up into pace per mile (Although, we just stopped walking thru the crowd around 13 min miles!) I think the most frustrating part of the whole race happened before we even started! The first people to finish the 5K were coming into the finish line before we were even close to the start line... Awesome! Made me feel GREAT! But I know I wasn't really racing anyone, just pushing myself as fast as I could go!

So when I finally reached the start line, we started running for a little bit... My muscles seemed to be FROZEN! They just did NOT want to move very fast! Whenever the road was at any decline, we made sure to run... or I'd just pick a start and stop point and run as fast as I could between the two points!

The race course was BEAUTIFUL!! We walked right around Soldier field, around the back side of Shedd Aquarium and up the shore of Lake Michigan and back into Grant Park for the finish line! I really could have slowed down and enjoyed the scenery, but I was on a mission.

I don't think I realized how fast I went until a little after I finished! I forgot to look at what time I crossed the start line, so I wasn't 100% sure what my pace was, except I knew I did about 17 minutes between miles 1-2 and 2-3! But when I got past the finish line, I remembered that my "finish" song had yet to start playing on my iPod! "All I do is Win" - DJ Khaled is possibly the best finishing song ever!! This just meant that I ran faster than the 55min long play list that I made!! YAY!

Official race results have me as the 11,837th person, 8,829th female, and 2,105th female ages 25-29 to cross the finish line!! But more importantly to me, I finished in 51:36 for a 16:37 minute/mile pace!

Gotta keep working to bring down my pace, but I think that was an OK start to what I can only hope is a good racing career! Thanks to everyone who was supporting me via texts and Facebook! It means a lot to know there are so many people out there wanting the best for me!