Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Hot Chocolate 15K!


Sunday I accomplished something I never thought I would, and I got to do it with some of my best friends!  It was the Atlanta Hot Chocolate race and this was my 3rd year doing it, only this year instead of doing the 5k, we were doing the 15k!  To translate, that is running 9.5 miles vs. 3.1.   Back in the fall when sign ups came, I was very pregnant and I guess already motivated to get back into running so I convinced my girlfriends that we could do the 15k instead of the 5.  They also were giving medals out this year for the 15 so that was another enticer.  I have never ran that far in my life and only the week before did we run 8 miles.  BUT...with all that being said,  I have now ran 9.5 miles without stopping, the longest distance and lived to tell about it! haha!   Dawn and I ran together the entire race and she definitely kept me motivated.  We ran through the street and HILLS of Atlanta and it was so fun to finish together!  Dawn and I have done the race together all 3 years.  The first year it was just the 2 of us.  Its a fun race to do and it gives us a great excuse for a girls weekend!  This year there was 7 of us and we had a blast.  There is nothing like laughing with a bunch of fun ladies, and that we did!  I think these girls trips keep us all sane and make us appreciate our families at home that much more.  
We left Saturday afternoon, headed to the packet pick-up and then checked into our hotel.  We ate and talked, talked, and talked!  We did have to get some sleep though because we wanted to be good and rested for the run.  It started at 8:25 and thankfully this year we had good weather.  Last year was so cold!  This year really was just perfect running weather.  Dawn and I finished all 9.5 miles in 1 hr. 42 minutes.  Not too bad!!  When we signed up for this race we were ok with the fact that we would have to walk some of it, but we ran the entire race!  I think we went numb.  Doing 8 miles last weekend had given us an idea of what it would be like and I knew real quick that if I ever stopped to walk it would be over with from there so we pushed ourselves!  About mile 7 there was the worst hill you could imagine and I thought about walking it the whole time, but after praying and praying the whole way up it we kept going.  I'm very proud of all of us and now we can set our sights on possibly doing a half marathon, but for now we will keep on with our monthly 5ks!  We need a good one for February if anyone knows of one??!
Thank you ladies for one awesome, fun weekend...laughter is the best medicine!!  Can't wait for the next girls weekend/night!


getting ready to go!



our first pic after crossing the finish line...I wanted to get the word finish but you can't really see it









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