Last night I had some anxiety of the race not that I was nervous or anything but simply knowing this by waking up at 3:30 am and being wide awake. Laid there for a while trying to get back to sleep however that just was not happening. My wife woke too. We finally go up around 4:30 to start getting ready for the race. We knew that there was to be buses taking participants from the parking lot near the finish line to the starting line at 5:30 am so we decided to get out the door and over there. We arrived at 5:20 and was of course the first ones there. LOL None the less we got out of the car after a few minutes and walked over to hop on a bus and have the quick 5 minute ride over to the starting location.
Having fun we took a selfie of before the race and chatted with a few other of the participants. One gentleman, Tom, stopped to talk to us and actually gave us a few words of encouragement. This was just yet another race for Tom since he's been doing them since high school and today was his 79th birthday!
We realized while walking around the starting area that we were to the two biggest participants there however we reminded ourselves that we may be the biggest but that we were there to do this for ourselves and no one else. Also my wife a couple of weeks ago shared with me a little bit of inspiration that a friend, Jillian, had shared with her, "Your doing more than the person sitting on the couch is" and that has really stuck with me.
So the race started and we did a great job if I do say so myself. We of course was in the back with many other walkers. The great part I get to say is that we didn't finish last! We actually even passed a couple of other people along the way. Yes we were passed by others as well however still it was good. We finished the race in under 1 hour!!! I had two goals when I started this race. First was to finish and second is I really did want to finish in under an hour. No that's not a great time however for me it is! 390 lbs at 6'-3" tall I am happy with my time. And I can now say I did it!
So the worst part of the race actually came after the race. There was an after race party with food, vendors giving away items, music, other participants chatting, and then finally the awards ceremony. It was suppose to start at 8 am however I know that they have to wait until the final participant crosses the finish line. So this was about 8:20 when the final people came around however they still didn't start until 9 am with the awards. Mind you there really was no where to sit and this fat boy knew that if he sat down on the ground that there would be no getting back up so I stood there. Well the awards ceremony ran on and on and on and on...... I think it's great that they want to recognize so many people however for the 20 raffle prizes they gave away it still took 1 hour to recognize all these different people for every little category. By the time 10 o'clock rolled around my feet were truly killing me and I was so sore. The race didn't kill me it was the 2 hours of standing around after the race that did.
Well we finally got home and shared with my wife's folks and our 8 year old how we did. Then it finally happened. I laid down to rest my legs and feet. They were throbbing. I had stinging pains that felt like needles. And that part sucked. However I can say that I will do this again. I may not stick around for the awards ceremony but I will definitely do another 5k! That part is worth it and I look forward to trying to beat my time the next go around!
