48.40*

I did it!This weekend, I ran my first 5k! The title right there is my time -- I'll explain the asterisk later.

The race was fantastic. That picture is what I looked like immediately after the race. Well, actually, I threw my head back in exhaustion then smiled for the camera, but you get the idea. We had beautiful weather and my team won the race. Like, literally, one of our members was the first woman to cross the finish line. I think she did it in 22 minutes. Yeah, before the race, we asked how fast she runs. She said sometimes 6 minute miles, but she wouldn't be running that fast today. We found her afterwards, she was interviewed by a paper in Michigan and everything. She was like a little roadrunner.

It was a long weekend. I had a seminar I went to all day in Boston, then I rode down to NYC with Marcus, who was in town for a PawSox game. I didn't get to my sister's house until about 2 a.m. We got up at like, 6 a.m. to get dressed and meet the rest of the team for the 9 a.m. race. There were SOOO many people in Times Square when we arrived for the race. We picked up our swag and got our team sign and set about taking pictures to document the event. Well, I set about taking pictures to document the event. I even had a fanny pack to carry my camera! Yeah, I'm a dork. I wrote out dedication sign for my mom (a breast cancer survivor) and we set about kicking cancer's butt.

So the race was actually not as bad as I thought it would be. Anyone who knows me knows that I don't really like exercise. Not a particular fan of sweating and being uncomfortable. So this was big for me. I got almost through mile two without stopping. Then I stopped maybe midway into mile three and ran the rest of the way at a slow jog. I was running with Amazon Girl who is frigging awesome, and she was encouraging me to keep going. Then, when I did stop, she told me that I was doing really well considering we were ducking and weaving between walkers and running up more hills than should be allowable by law. She's great. Shout out to Amazon Girl.

After the race, they had a little fair, so we went around and picked up all of the swag we could. I got a sewing kit, some Arizona flavor packets for water bottles, tons of coupons, some reusable shopping bags (though my ones from Walgreens broke!), and bunch of other stuff I didn't need. We saw Jessica Alba and ate Cosi sandwiches. Yum. To the sandwiches. Though I'm sure the guys will say yum about Jessica. Oh! And we took group pictures. All of our team didn't show up for the race (some were sleepyheads) but here's a pic of all of our group. Including my coworker Lynn (fourth from the right) who traveled all the way from RI to run with me. We were running together, but she's in better shape than me. I think she finished the race in 33 minutes. Go speedracer.

So about that asterisk.

We were so excited, snapping photos and looking at the confetti, we didn't realize that the confetti meant the race had started. Literally, we were just sauntering about with the sign taking pics. Then we realized we should run. So, when we made it to mile 1 at like 18 minutes, we all scoffed. We knew it hadn't taken 18 minutes, and that the rest of our time would be skewed.

So, officially, I ran the race in 48. 40 minutes. I'm going to say I ran it in 42 minutes. Not a big difference, and really, it's not that important because I'm just amped I finished! Also, our team raised more than $1,500 to go toward cancer research.

Take that cancer!