So. Going into this run Sunday morning, I hadn’t run since Tuesday, and I worked all day Saturday at Homecoming on campus. I wasn’t going to put a lot of pressure on myself and if I had to walk, then I’d walk. No big deal.

I had heard of this race before but this was my first year running it. It’s in honor of GySgt Thomas J. Sullivan who was killed in 2015 at a naval reserve center in Tennessee but was originally from the area where I live.

It started and ended at a bar and restaurant, where they were having food and drinks after. There was a very short ceremony before hand to honor Sullivan, and the mayor of the city gave a few words before there was the presenting of the colors and the National Anthem.

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Mile 1

When we turned left out of the parking lot, I was still in kind of a mass of people, and we were running up hill. Once we got down the other side, we kind of fanned out. It was around this time I could hear a group from the local police academy toward the back chanting as they ran. I quickly looked back and knew I didn’t want them to pass me, but it was kind of cool to hear them while I was running.

When we got to the first turn, some of the runners went up on the sidewalk while others, like me, were still in the road. We passed a police officer at the intersection but we were still running with traffic on the road. One car tooted its horn at some of the runners further up from me to move out of the way. Yeah, that’s kind of rude.

My mile time was 10:17.

Mile 2

The first half of the second mile was mostly downhill, and once we hit 1.5 miles, it was uphill, flat, and then downhill. I didn’t feel like I was going to stop, and I kept telling myself to just keep going.

My mile time was 10:14.

Mile 3

For this entire mile, I was running behind two women in gray. And I think this is the mile where the pregnant woman and another woman running with her two dogs passed me. Yeah.

It was mostly flat, then a downhill, and then there was one hill toward the end of the mile where we’d then take a right. There was a servicewoman standing at the corner giving out high fives, and not gonna lie, that was motivation for me to finish.

There were walkers on the sidewalks who were doing a two mile walk, and when we passed them, they all clapped for us. So that was nice, too.

My mile time was 10:22.

Post-3 miles

A police officer was directing traffic through the last intersection we ran through, and he was like, “Don’t be last!”

My three mile time was around 30:30ish, so I knew I wasn’t going to beat my time in the last race. Once I turned onto the street where the bar was and could see the parking lot, I passed those two women in gray and then booked it into the parking lot to the finish line.

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My final time was 32:41—my third best race time—BUT this was a 3.25 mile race. Not a regular 3.1 miles. So I ran extra. I think my actual 5K time would have been closer to 31:00.

OH BUT THE BEST NEWS IS THAT I DIDN’T STOP TO WALK AT ALL. I RAN THE ENTIRE RACE, FOLKS. FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER!

My breathing was fine at the end—I wasn’t wheezing like I normally do—but I did regret not taking a water bottle from the high schoolers at the table who were handing them out around 2.5 miles because they didn’t have water at the finish line. I did get an orange slice, though.

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I have no shame in the fact I had a beer in my hand by 11:30 a.m. It was well deserved. The lunch was really good, too.

Overall: 132/224

Overall female: 61/111

Female 20-29: 20/32 (I’m never going to win my age group)

Next race: First Monday in December at 6:30 p.m. Yeaah, wish me luck on that one.