I`m getting pancakes after this

So I ran my first 5 km race on September 23rd,2013.
(Yeah yeah, its been a while, but I will try to remember exactly how I felt that day.)

As someone who was new to running, the idea of a 5 km race was a bit daunting.
Frankly at the beginning of this journey two flights of stairs was pretty fucking daunting, but I digress.

I was perusing my Facebook page and ignoring a few hundred loads of laundry one night when I noticed a friend asking for someone to run a race with her.

Being the oh so confident new runner, I agreed right away. Like an idiot.

Had I ever run 5 km?
Nope.

Maybe like cumulatively, over the past 2 years, but not all at once.
I have a car for those kinds of distances.

Had I ever run with this particular person?
Or anyone other than my learn to run class, the understanding group of out of shape beginners who had watched me sweat, wheeze, cuss and slowly shuffle my way through my interval training?
Nope.

Remember when you hung out with the (insert socially crushing deformity) person in your class?

You know, the one who was really nice and you enjoyed their personality, but you always made sure to have your picture taken with them because their level of weirdness always somehow made you look like a normal functioning human being?
Like their Star Trek t shirt covered torso could protect you from ridicule, a social body shield so to speak.

Those are the people I need to run with.
Or do anything with, cause they are usually pretty rad and make you feel great about yourself with their weirdness.

Where was I going with this?

Oh right....I am that girl in this situation.

I made my friend look like Ben Fucking Johnson in this race.

She whipped past me like her ass was on fire.
It wasn't by the way.
I know, because that is all I saw of her for the whole race, until she lapped me hard at 3 kms.

Anyways let me tell you how the day went.

It was a crispy fall day, and my entire family came out to see me do this nutters thing I had been going on about for weeks.
There were a few hundred people, all milling about, getting ready for this little fun run, including children who oddly enough were wearing the same race bib as me.

Huh..isn't that adorable.

I kissed the kid, gave my husband my oh so cool fist bump and I went to the starting line with the other runners.

Now for those of you who are unfamiliar with St. Albert, let me give you a quick topography lesson.

Remember your grandparents telling you about walking uphill both ways in the snow to school?

Likely they lived in St. Albert.

It has got to be the hilliest (yes I just made up that word) place in the greater Edmonton area.

Now I had not run the course before, which in hindsight was a big mistake.
I was coming off a relatively easy stretch of land behind the Rona where my run club would saunter over flat cement at a leisurely pace.
Oh we did a teeny little hill, affectionately called Goose poop loop
(Lots of slip and fall hazards there let me tell you)
But it was no where near the inclines I faced here.
I do kind of wish I would have thought to bring one of the territorial geese from the loop with me, you never run faster that when being chased my a maniacal Gander who lacks the appreciation of your pretty running ensemble.

Confident in my tried and tested interval training, my fancy water bottle belt and my coordinated spandex outfit, I went to the start line with my friend.

Aww....look, the little kids are lining up too!
Super cute!
You gonna run the race with us little buddy?
10 years old? Well just have fun ok?

The official raised the pistol into the air and fired.
It was really a cool thing, and it seems I stood slightly transfixed, taking in the experience with a little mental snapshot for when I am old and senile.
Speaking of being old and senile, I was quickly left in the dust of that little shit 10 year old, as he bolted ahead of me at the speed of a bad donair through your guts after a bar night.

My friend was no where to be found, I was lost in a sea of bodies, pressing me forward.
My running pace usually resembles a heard of geriatric turtles stuck in cold molasses, so I quickly lost all breath control and all my training went straight out the window.
Wheezing past the spectators, I tried to focus and get back into my killer mindset (ha ha ha), but I was now out of breath and wondering if anyone would think I was dead if I just laid down for a quick nap in the bushes.

1 km
I was doing ok. The pack had thinned out a bit, and I was starting to find that pace that I was comfortable in. I call it my "please come back ice cream truck I have money!" pace.
The juvenile delinquent was no where to be found, and I was running along a nice older couple who I could use as an excuse for my relaxed pace if anyone asked.
"Oh I was having a nice conversation with Fred and Ethel, and didn't want to run off and be rude!"

2 km
 Fred and Ethel have abandoned me. Surely this hill can`t keep going up forever?
Really starting to feel the burn.Also beginning to worry about the friction of my fancy running tights as my thighs are rubbing together hard enough to start a fire.

3km
Oh look, a water station! I could just stop and have a drink and it would be amazing....shit shit fuck shit there is my gazelle friend on the turn back, cant let her see me stopping for a drink, that would mean I am human and need a break on this little jaunt of death.
`
Oh hey!! Just pacing myself, right behind you!!
Kill me know, the little cheetah child is on her heels, and is smiling at me. He looks like he just set his Xbox down to embarrass a grown ass woman in her virgin race.
I wonder if I would get kicked out of the race if I tripped him a little...
At least my friend had the decency to be sweating.

4 km
Sweet baby Jesus I don't think I can lift my feet over this speed bump. WHO PUT A SPEED BUMP HERE??? If I trip over a pile of leaves because my thighs are on fire and my feet are made of lead, I will not be a happy woman. How am I still on an fucking incline?

4.5 km
So hungry....I am getting pancakes after this.

4.75 km
All good athletes ( and I use the term super loosely on me) know that the last stretch is usually a good one, and running is no different.
I was blinded by the sweat from the hundreds of doughnuts I had consumed the past 2 years dripping into my eyes, and my lungs were packing up to leave my body through my nostrils, when I made the last turn to the finish line.

All these random people are cheering my fat ass like I was running a sprint in the mother fucking Olympics!
Whistles, cowbells ( MORE COWBELL!!) and rounds of applause greet my soggy ass as I finally saw the big inflatable finish line. It was almost enough to make me pick up the pace. Almost.

Because that finish line was at the top of the biggest hill I had ever fricking seen. I felt like I should have been provided a Sherpa for the last 100 meters of this race, the air was getting thin and I think I saw a weather balloon floating past me.

But I finished it. In 45 mins, which isn't that bad of a time really.
My gazelle friend only was ahead of me by 9 minuets, and I was in a good place with that.
Plus I feel she was a bit sweatier than me, which was only fair.

I never saw the little runner boy at the finish line, which was likely a good thing, as I don`t need to have the publicity of having given a 10 year old a wedgie for kicking my ass at putting one foot in front of another.