Running In The Rain And Turkey Trot

This was my run on Tuesday evening. At first glance, there really isn't anything special here. 2.63 miles is a relatively short distance compared to nearly all of my training runs and a 9:51 min/mi average at that distance isn't particularly impressive for me either. In fact, the only thing that made this run different from any other is that the conditions were miserable. It was dark, windy and cold and was pouring rain but in spite of those conditions, I powered through and got it done. Running is hard enough as it is without having to deal with adverse conditions.

As I was shivering and praying for the rain or wind to die down (it never did), I kept thinking about how representative this run was of my life at work over the past couple of weeks. Life, like running, isn't always sunshine and rainbows. In fact, at times it is down right hard and grueling, but I believe it is in those moments that greatness is born. We find out the most about ourselves and what we are capable of when things get hard and this is the best way to develop confidence. To be able to experience moments like this, we have to be willing to put ourselves in situations that are uncomfortable and may even have a high chance of failure. Running is one of the ways I have found to experience these special moments.

This morning I ran in the Davenport Turkey Trot 5K. This was not a race that was originally on my schedule, but I signed up to do it with someone else. I don't really feel like going into the details of the situation at this time, but for now let's just say that person backed out of doing the race. Since I had already paid for the race and Erin, her mom, and aunt Lisa were walking the 5 mile route, I decided that I would run it anyways.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect going in because I hadn't trained for the race and only started my new training program last week. It isn't that I doubted my ability to complete a 3.1 mile course (I'm happy to say that I can probably run 3 miles in my sleep), I just wasn't sure what to expect and I was questioning how much my heart would be in it. For the first mile I trudged along at a respectable pace for a training run, but as my legs got stretched out they were feeling pretty good so at the turn around (it was an out and back course) I decided to push it to see what I could do. I ended up finishing with a time of 29:19 good enough for 188 out of 978 finishers (that is top 20%!!!!). That time was 41 seconds off of my 5K PR, but my last mile was 8:24 which blew away my previous PR of 8:50.