Monica's Miles- A Chubby Girl's Journey to Fit and Fabulous!: Polar Dash (or more PUDDLE JUMPING Dash....)

WOW! January 11, 2014-- 1st race of the year. Polar Dash- Chicago Lakefront.

Last weekend it was negative temperatures. Today 37 degrees. Sounds great right? Well..... .not when there is now 14 inches of snow melting and leaving either ice patches or HUGE, DEEP, FRIGID Puddles.

When I set out this morning I told everyone "I am not worrying about time, goal today is not to PR, it is just to not end up on my Ass!" And I meant it. I have not run in a week- it was only 2.7 miles. Prior to that was 3 weeks ago. I had not trained enough. Finishing and not falling was the plan.

The first mile was ROUGH- lots of puddles, lots of ice, lots of self-doubt. Then..... something happened. It started to feel good. I was running for LONG stretches, only slowing due to water or ice. Mile 2 passed by. {aused a two minutes with fallen runner to convince them to call 911 and the the course medic got there and off I went again. Skipped the Porta-potty-didn't need it. (I have an obsession w/ needing to pee while running..... it is an issue) Cheered on some runners I could hear talking about "oh, I am not sure I can do this" Mile 3- going strong! Turn around time "WHAT, I'm 1/2 way there? No way, I feel too good?" Kept going. And going! Passed the Porta-potty....still did not stop. Puddle near the end... thought "Almost there, screw going around, I am going through." Worst decision of race. Water was so cold, I suddenly was dizzy. Oops. Suddenly I was finished!!! DID NOT CRY (but almost did).

NOW, if you have ever done a run, there is your official distance and time and then there is what your GPS says.

I have only done 1 10k before- The Women's Rock official time 1:39:34- same exact course 4 months ago.

My best time on a 5k was a pace of 15:30 (5k=48:15 so 10k conversion would have been 1:36:30)

Today's Official Time? 1:32:34. 14:54 pace (And it was much longer as we had to weave all over the course and sometimes off the course, into grass and back on......... so it was a BITCH.. I can say that. It was.)

I shaved EXACTLY 7 minutes off my pace. That means I dropped my pace MORE THAN A MINUTE PER MILE!!! OMG!!!! So, who set out just to finish and instead got her BEST TIME EVER!!! My pace per minute was better than any of my 5k's even.

I broke my first sub-15min/mile race.

I ran more than I walked.

I did it without carrying water.

I DID IT!! I really still cannot believe it!

Have to give a shout out to Cassi Ams- She hung with me the second 1/2 of the race and helped keep me going.

Committed to do the rest of the TeamOrtho Series so Get Lucky-7k (March), Women's Rock 10k(Sept) and Monster Dash 10k (October) are totally on the schedule.

Today is the first time I felt like I deserved to call myself a runner. Somehow, breaking below 15 min/mile made that OK in my mind.

(BTW< the unofficial from MapMyFitness----AMAZINGNESS-6.7 miles, 14:10pace. This paused it when I stopped for the fallen runner and added in the walk from corral to start)