I WON!

Okay, so the majority of this blog is dedicated to my children and I need to catch up on their goings on, but I thought I would blog about myself for a change. As previously noted in a prior post, I never win ANYTHING. At a church function one time there were 27 ladies present and 25 of them got prizes. I was one of the two who did not! Unfortunately, I have passed this luck onto Greg who after 30 work parties has yet to win ANY raffles. So, this morning, I was shocked/elated/pleasantly surprised when I actually won something. Here's the story (or just skip down to the last part)....

At the end of January, I decided it was time to start getting back in shape from having Katie, so I started running. I've always done the Women's Fitness Celebration in September and this year my goal was to run the 5k in less than 35 minutes - the time required to be in the competitive wave. I didn't really want to compete, I just wanted to be able to run without having to weave in and out of all the walkers. Now, for many people 3 miles in 35 minutes is nothing, but I grew up having asthma and I wouldn't dare call my 5'4" squat italian frame the ideal runner's physique. So, it's been a struggle to run, but I've stuck with it.


Then I heard about the 5k Race for the Cure at the beginning of May. So, I ran in honor of my Grandma Burton who has survived Breast Cancer twice and is still alive and well at 84! It was a wonderful feeling to run with all those woman and I was surprised to finish under 28 minutes. I finally felt like I had a decent running time. I continued to run with a friend and then last week we heard about a 6k in our town. So, we signed up and ran this morning at 7:30am. It was a small group, but I'm happy to report I placed FIRST for my age group Age 20-29 :)! My friend, Shawna, placed first for her group Age 30-39! Way to go! And it was my other friend's first 6k in awhile and she did AWESOME - way better than my first 5k! Yea, Paige! It was a great feeling for all of us. Now, true to fashion, I did not win ANY of the raffled prizes (which were AWESOME, of course), but I did get a cool $20 gift certificate to a running shop for placing first.

I guess $20 and losing over 20 pounds is a pretty good return on exercising :). Thanks to everyone who supported me and was happy for me! Special thanks to my babysitter, Kymber, for watching Katie, so I could go!