I did it again!

Some of you might remember 2 summers ago when I posted about running the Lavender Days 5K (I'd link to it, but it's hidden in the old blog which is now private). It was the first running I had done for many many years and the first 5K I had run since college (when I ran 2 of them, with Zac's encouragement).

Well, on Thurs I kind of decided spur of the moment to register for this year's Run Through The Lavender again. I haven't really done any running lately - just a couple weeks ago I ran 30 min one time and was surprised that I could do it. With Zumba and the Jillian Michaels' 30 Day Shred that I've been doing for quite awhile now, I've been feeling strong(ish) and I kind of just wanted to see if I could do a 5K again. And I love lavender. I love running through the fields of lavender.:)

(Here's the link to the Run Through the Lavender)

(and a photo from the website:)

So on Sat. Zac came down with me to cheer me on (he decided not to run it this year) and I loaded up my ipod and laughed at myself for looking a bit ridiculous (haha).

But I ran the whole thing! And I felt pretty good! Wohooo!!! (My camera batteries died, so these remaining race pics were taken on Zac's phone which takes crappy photos.)
Here I am running the dirt trail through the fields of lavender:


And there I am in the very back of this pack (and you can't really see me):

I even finished 5 min faster than I did 2 yrs ago (!!), which made me pretty happy, esp since I had been running a lot more working up towards the 5K that time and this time I hadn't "trained" at all.

(I was still slow at 36 min - but eh, who cares . . . right? ) ;)

This was the first time I've ever run a race all by myself and also the first time I've run with my ipod. Music really helps. This time INXS "Suicide Blonde" and Violent Femmes "Kiss off" were especially motivating somewhere in the middle of the race. I'd recommend those, personally, for your own running playlist, if you feel so inclined. ;)

And here I am back home later in the day with my bag of goodies and t-shirt (yay for lavender chapstick and essential oil!):

And yay for me! :)

I did it!

(again!)

hooray.