Accountability in the Numbers

I can't help but get a little excited when I look back over my race results for the past 2 weeks! On Sept. 25th, I ran the first of seven scheduled 5K's up until Thanksgiving. I was pretty pleased with my overall time, but I never looked at where I stood overall. So, tonight I did a little research and here's what I found:

Sept. 25th: Candlelighters Night Run 5K
Females 25-29: I placed 9 out of 27 participants
Overall: 131 out of 311 participants
Chip time: 30:33 (30 minutes and 33 seconds)
Gun time: 30:51 (30 minutes and 51 seconds)
Pace: 9:49/M

Oct. 2nd: Trinity Bright Halloween 5K
Females 25-29: I placed 6 out of 19 participants
Overall: 46 out of 137 participants
Chip time: 29:51 (29 minutes 51 seconds)
Gun time: 30:07 (30 minutes 7 seconds)
Pace: 9:36/M

I must confess that between Sept 25th and Oct. 2nd, I only ran 4 miles. I did not get those longer runs in like I know are so important! I noticed again today that right around the 2 mile mark I needed to distract myself to keep pushing forward. The majority of my training has been 2 miles at a time. I must find a way to get those longer runs in!!!

Today was pretty neat! Again, it was a very positive experience! For the first time, my son was with me at the race! He cheered me across the starting line and was there to cheer me on as I came upon the finish line! Just seeing him there waving and yelling, "Come on mom, you can do it!" was so touching! It gave me that extra kick to just floor-it those last 50 feet. He took pictures and was so excited! :-) While I was running, he got his face painted, played the ring toss, jumped in the jump house, played with water balloons, got lots of treats and goodies, and even harassed the geese at the duck pond! He barely noticed that I was gone! (Thanks Heather for watching him!) He couldn't stop talking about how much fun he had! So, that got me thinking about getting him started in the 1 mile fun runs. Perhaps after my series of 5K's we'll start working on the 1 mile runs so that we can do that together!

Another really cool thing I noticed were two teenage girls, age 13 and 14, running together. The 14 year old ran track and cross country and was in really great shape. The 13 year old was still in really great shape yet ran at a slower pace. The two of these girls kept each other accountable! They would run really fast and then walk to catch their breath. Every time they passed another runner they would count, "1, 2, 3" and so on. They also did that whenever they were walking and another participant passed them up. I remember hearing, "that's 1" as they just started walking and I ran past. I spoke words of encouragement to these girls because we passed each other up at least a half a dozen times! It was very clear that the 14 year old could have ran ahead and left her friend behind. BUT, she didn't! Clearly, she wanted to encourage and inspire her friend to keep pushing when the temptation to slow down and walk set in.

For some reason, that really hit me today. Having an accountability partner doesn't mean running ahead and leaving your partner behind. It means sticking beside them and speaking words of encouragement to keep each other on track, always striving to push forward. To sum it up, both of these girls placed #1 in their age groups! I couldn't be more proud of them! I'll probably never see them again, yet they reminded me of a very valuable lesson today and I can never thank them enough!

Stay tuned for more of life in the fast lane....