Back in the fall of 2008, I decided that running and lifting weights had just about run its course with me... I was tired of working my tail off (with the help of my good friend Jason Townsend) in the gym, throwing up more and more weight week after week, and seeing the scale do nothing but inch closer to that 300 lb mark... Sure I felt stronger, but my goal was to lose weight, not put it on (come to think of it, I prolly shouldn't have taken all those fancy protein shakes if I wanted to lose weight... Oh well)
So, as some sort of effort to keep myself inspired, I decided to enter a 5k in conjunction with the Johnny Cash Flower Pickin' Festival, an annual celebration of the life of Johnny Cash held in Starkville, MS (where I was living at the time)... I hadn't run a 5k since college (and since about 50 lbs), but figured this would be something to keep me motivated to run...
Since it was nearly 2 years ago, I don't remember much about training (which I probably didn't do much of)... But here's what I remember about race morning:
I arrived at the start line before any one else... literally... I was probably an hour and a half early, but that was because I was nervous... I stretched a little (or what I thought was stretching) in front of City Hall right across from Mugshots... Everyone lines up and Robbie Ward (festival organizer) shouts, "1, 2, 3, go!" (which I thought was kinda weird, isn't it 3,2,1?)... Regardless, we're off...
As usual, I let everyone else go ahead and start... I wait for everyone to take off, then pressed play on my iPod, which contained the punk rock masterpiece album "Recipie for Hate" by Bad Religion... I'm off, running, (or trying to) and I'm watching as the pack gets further and further ahead of me... Finally, they disappeared altogether... I'm pounding the pavement as hard as I can and then, I looked behind me...
The ONLY thing behind me was the police car that was bringing up the rear... sweet...
So I keep running, miserable the entire time... shin splints, side stitches, the whole bit (which tells me I had no business being out there)
I end up finishing 2nd... to last... but I finished...
I still have the flower that I got at the finish line...
What the JCF 5k did for me though was get me moving... I had 2 simple goals for the race: finish, and run the entire thing... I accomplished both... in something like 44 minutes...
And a full blown "accomplishment junkie" was born... It wasn't but a few weeks later that I was running another 5k...
The MSU Turkey Trot is held on campus every year, and all I can tell you is that you really don't know how hilly a campus is until you run it... I struggled for, well, the entire way, up and down "hills" (basically just gentle inclines-stuff I'd laugh at now), but I accomplished both of my goals for that race: to finish, and to run the entire thing... shaved something like 6 minutes off my time, which kept fueling the "accomplishment junkie" in me...
I had no idea what was in store for me in 2009...
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