It was time for my February 5K race. I aim to do one 5K a month in 2022. January was Canton 5K and today was Hot Chocolate 5K in Dallas.

Why does my race days always turn out super cold? Yesterday was 73 degrees, sunshine and perfect weather. I woke up this morning listening to rain on my window. Thankfully that had passed Dallas but it was now 42 degrees and light snow!!! I wasn’t sure how to dress before I left home but it would turn out that I actually hit jackpot with my choice. I have a pair of a little thicker leggins that I took, two long sleeve shirts and a thicker jacket over that. And my turtleneck and work beanie to keep my neck and head warm!

Last night, right before I went to bed my stomach started to throw a fit. It was so painful for no particular reason. It was better this morning but the pain came for short periods of time. That made me a little unsure about how this all would go. What if I desperately needed to go to the bathroom during the race or if I got even worse pain? Well, I decided that I was just gonna find out and deal with it if it happened.

This was my first race with a lot more people signed up. It was people everywhere. Some of them participated in the 15K and some was doing both!! Jeez… I could feel the difference already at the start line. I was in the last corral thankfully, amongst the walkers. That’s absolutely where I belong.

But what I didn’t think about beforehand was the amount of swinging arms! Last time, in Canton I was “pushed” to run a little bit in the beginning. Today my problem was that most of these people that was in the back with me was not power walking as I was. I had to navigate myself through the crowd. It was a quite interesting experience actually!

But once it spread out a little it went better. I thought I got a pretty good pace from the beginning. It was a little encouraging to walk by some of the runners while they were jogging. That gave me a little ego boost that my walking pace was at least decent. But yet I had a feeling the first 1.5 miles went slow. I think I was thrown off a little because of the crowd and that I had to navigate myself differently. But once we came to the 2 miles mark it all eased up in my mind. That’s when the first uphill came, over a bridge. But we were so close to the end by then that it didn’t bother me. And there it was… the finish line. I could see it! I could smell the chocolate!

I didn’t look right away how my time was. I just pressed stop on the watch and let it be. I was just glad to be done and I was pleased that my stomach only growled twice and nothing emergent happened. It felt good. One of my 2022 goals and February goals was accomplished. So I went with the crowd to the next “station”. The Hot Chocolate & snack station

This plate here was the most rewarding thing ever!!! I was surprised to see that I was almost the only one to dip the banana in the chocolate fondue… people! That’s what it’s for!!!

I finished my plate before I went back to my car. The thing was… there was a mile walk to/from the parkinglot! They had been very clear with that in their notes so I was well aware of it. But apparently I am a fast walker all the time because I once again had to navigate myself through the crowd to get to the parkinglot. The invention that the car show up on my apple maps where its parked is the best invention ever! It was an organized chaos in the dark when we arrived and not very good signage so there was a lot of people running around trying to find their cars. I knew approximately where I parked but thanks to the map I could go straight to it! And to be out of the wind and cold was amazing. To be able to take off the shoes and change to my crocks, take off my jacket and hat… so nice. And that’s when I took a first look at the results.

I was very pleased with the result and pace! I didn’t know at the top of my head what I did in Canton but I thought this was a tad better. This was a pace of 14:09 mile/min and that is a very good pace! But it wasn’t until I came home and looked at my own database and the official race results that I realized how much better it was! My official pace in this race was 14:25 while in Canton it was 14:47!!! I simply have to be pleased with that improvement! And also the results compared to others was far better than I ever could expect!

To come home and take a hot shower was so nice. I am going to rest and take it easy the rest of the day. My muscles in my legs are quite sore already so I think that an afternoon in front of the TV watching the Olympics will be about what I can accomplish!