Mogathon 2012

In a push to get active again, about six weeks ago, I found myself signing up for the Mogathon again. I have really enjoyed it the last couple of years and decided to sign up along with my friend, Arleen. It was really nice to have someone to run with! We did our best to get together once per week leading up to the event to run together. I definitely felt my endurance increase over the weeks, but I don't know if we ran a single training 5K in less than 35-40 minutes. We would get winded or get cramps, or just feel kind of lazy.  We didn't really push ourselves.

Today we ran our 5K in 33:26!  We definitely pushed, and the excitement of the crowd around us was enough to keep us going.  We only walked through the water stations and one quick walk up a particularly daunting hill at about the 3.5K mark.  I am proud of us!

My talented hubby was on hand to cheer us on, and take some quality photos.  Here we are at the starting line, feeling fresh.  Though I have to say, for some reason when we first started moving and hardly begun running I got a sharp pain in my left hip.  Thankfully it eased off as I pushed through it.

Here we are heading for the finish line.  It was a very warm day today.  It was 15C by 7am, and I am sure that by the time we finished running it was probably close to 20C.  The shady spots were so nice, but the last kilometer was tough, as there wasn't much for shade and I was getting tired.  A few moments of nausea passed quickly so I was able to finish strong.

The water stations were fun.  Especially the 80s aerobics themed one.  The teenagers in spandex doing aerobics and cheering us on was worth a smile.  I loved the misters they had along the path.  I wish there would have been more than 2 of them to run through, but that one at the 3km was very appreciated!  I also was happy with the ice water sponges.  That was a refreshing treat once I started to heat up.

We are already talking about signing up for another race. The next one I know of is the River Run around the middle of August.  I did the 10k in that event a couple of years ago and it was fun.  We have talked about signing up for the 5K again, but trying to shave our time down to 30 minutes or under.  I think that we could do it, but we will have to kick our training up a notch and do some sprints/hills/etc to get our cardio endurance up.