A New PR For Me!

Last Saturday, March 26^th, I ran a 5K on the track at Providence Day School in Charlotte, NC.  The Charlotte Running Club (CRC) was trying to break the Guinness World Record for the fastest 100 by 5K relay.  I was lucky enough to run a leg of the relay, because who would not want to break a world record.  When I arrived it was raining and cold, I wasn’t happy about this.  The past 3 weekends had been beautiful, what happened, why did it have to rain this weekend, why not next weekend? As I stepped out of the car I could see the tents set up for timing and hanging out in.  After I said hi to my dad, who had come out earlier to support all of his runners, I went to the press box to keep warm and dry.  I got to chat with Caitlin, Aaron, and John and watch a few of the runners complete their legs of the relay.  Then my dad came up to let me know it was time to warm up.  As I did my warm up, I just kept getting more and more excited.  As I did my drills and got ready to go to the starting line felt pumped.  I was not nervous at all!

Once I grabbed the baton, I took off.  The adrenaline I felt over took me the first lap and ran too fast (74 – Yikes!).  But who wouldn’t be super excited?  After the first lap was able to get back on pace, I enjoyed having people cheering for me every 200 meters as well as Megan, Jordan, and Catlin cheering from the infield.  It really helped me keep going when I would get tired.   About halfway through I started to feel that first lap and started feeling tired.  Mike Kahn was able to help me keep pushing through the pain when he ran across the field with a boom box blasting; the sudden noise scared me and I jumped out of my skin which gave me a jolt to keep going.  As the laps continued to click off, I could feel myself slowing down slightly, so I intentionally pushed harder as the rain kept coming down.  With 600 to go I gave another big push, kicking up water as I when making my butt and back wetter than it already was.  With one lap left I heard the bell and everyone cheering, I sprinted hard to the finish and handed off the baton.  I was so glad I did not drop the baton.  When my dad told me I had gotten a PR, I was ecstatic.  I thought if I could run 17:08 (17:09.1 officially) on an asphalt track by myself and in the pouring rain, just think what I could run on a good day with competition.  They race got me wanting to run a race on the track to see if maybe I could break 17:00 for a 5K in my next race.