Tag Archives: Ispirational 5k Running Story

“Singing & Running In The Rain!”

It was a picture perfect day on Friday, and then torrentially downpouring by  night-time as I lay im bed wondering if the rain would let up for the morning 5k we were participating in (Watertown, CT. John Trumbull 5k).   I began to shudder a bit at the thought of the possibility of walking 3.2 miles in the damp cold early morning rain.  I finally dozed off listening to my “New Age” music channel to help soothe my racing mind!  I woke up around 5am to the sound of pouring rain, Oh Boy this cannot be good, I thought,  I tried calling the Parks Dept. to see if there was any message posted  regarding a cancellation, and got only the leftover message from Friday.  My next move was to check the website, no luck there either.  Oh well, it was time to just suck it up, hit the shower and get going!  I threw a bunch of stuff in my duffle, grabbed my memento of my Dad, made some coffee and out the door we went! 

It was only misting by the time we hit the road  so we figured the race was on and if it wasn’t, a nice breakfast with fresh corned beef hash at the :Split Rail” in Woodbury,  was  nearer in our future than we had planned – Yumm!!  We had just a small amount of trouble finding the park in the misty drizzle, and arrived with only  ten minutes to spare! (Oh, my nerves)  We checked in and headed for the start line where we recieved our instructions and the small group of about 25-30 of us were off and running, well in our case walking! 

The course was 2 laps around the park and then out onto the road.  As we were about 3/4 of the way through our first lap,  the first runner lapped us, I thought, damn I.m slow (Lol), and then the next runner came and the one after that and so on…   We finally finished our second lap, and here comes the first group of runners heading for the finish line!!  We had just passed the one mile mark!  Oy Vey!!  2.2 miles to go!!  As we proceeded out of the park and dowm the street, a few more runners passed us and we “Good Job’d” each other and one wonderfully kind woman actually stopped running when she got to us,  shook my hand and said what a good job we were doing and thanked us for coming!!  Wow!!  That was Awesome!!  Thank you so much kind lady, you made my day!!  Then a couple of runners later a nice man stopped to do the same!!!  Wow Again!!!  Thank you kind sir!!  It never ceases to amazae me the kindness that comes out of people at these events,  it’s truly a form of human bonding amomg perfect strangers and I am addicted to it now and so grateful to have it in my life and give it in return  on a regular basis!! 

As we trucked onward the rain went from mist to drizzle, to showers, and of course,  then to a steady rain!  I really wanted to jog a few times just to move faster but the glare from the wet roads gave me some slight vertigo issues and made it difficult for me to see little cracks and potholes that could land me with a sprained or snapped ankle! (shudder)  I figured it was better to be safe than sorry so we just treid to keep  up a good walking pace instead.  We reached the 2 mile mark and it started to rain a little harder, rain was dripping from the bill of my baseball hat in a steady straem and poor Rick (who does’nt like to wear a hat) had rain running into his eyes almost constantly.  We trooped onward knowing it couldn’t be more than 15 minutes or so to the finish line cracking jokes and sinsing in the rain as we went.  Finally, we could see the turn into the park, YAY!, in we turned and up the driveway we went towards the finish line.  As we approached the line the two nice girl timekeepers chered us on, as we apologized for keeping them out in the rain so long after everyone else had finished!  They stated that we were the ones in the rain and they were under a canopy and we all laughed and we crossed the fimish line at 1:08! (16 minutes faster than ny last 5k!) We approached the pavillion and one of the staff (I think it was the race director) said “we have something here for you!”  I thought maybe it was a t-shirt or something along those lines, but it was actuall y a TROPHY!!!  Yay!!  My very first one for a 5k!!  He said “Congratulations! You’re the first walkerto cross the finish line!! Rick and I said “WOOHOO!!!!!” and then cracked up lauhjing, because as you have probably surmised, I was the ONLY walker to cross the finish line!!  But hey it’s a “Win” none-the-less and an accomplishment that will leave me smiling every time I look at it!! 

Continue reading →