Beating My Personal Best

Try to ignore the fact that I look like Gigantor next to my perfectly petite friend, Lisa and the beautiful professional runner, Karin.  Believe me, I thought twice about posting such an unflattering picture of myself.  But the fact is, this was another proud moment in my running history and I had to share.

Two weeks ago I ran in my 2nd 5K--the Santa Monica 5000.  The Santa Monica Pier is in the background, but the marine layer was too thick that morning to actually see it.  There were several great things about this race, so many that it didn't matter that we had to be up at 5AM for the run.  My facebook status declared early that morning that "apparently I have lost my mind."  I mean, who gets up at 5AM on a Sunday to run?!?!  Well, apparently I do.

1)  You couldn't beat the scenery.  Yes, it was foggy that morning, but running down Ocean (the street that runs parallel to the beach) is hard to beat.

2)  I did it with two of my special friends.  We ran at our own paces, we finished at different times, but we did it together.  More importantly, we celebrated together afterwards with a delicious breakfast and shopping.  That right there is reason to run in my book.

3)  And best of all--I beat my personal best.  Before the race started I told my friends, "All I want to do is beat my previous time.  Oh, and beat that little girl in the dress over there."  Well, unfortunately I didn't beat the little girl running in the dress (she was pretty darn cute and fast too!) but I did improve my time.

My total time was 34:05, with a pace of 11:00.  That is almost a 3 minute improvement on my previous run!  It doesn't sound like much, but believe me when every second and every step counts--it is!  (And if I hadn't walked for 10 second to drink a little water, it would have been even better.)

Our next run is on Halloween down in West L.A.  This time we're getting the husbands and the kids involved--costumes and pumpkin pancakes included.

I'm going to wear a dress.  Maybe that will make me run faster.