Mission accomplished.  The 5K is done.  Yay for me!

Race day was cold and windy...I definitely had not trained for that...and after a 30 minute race delay- the gun sounded and we were off...Shealynn started off with me but soon pulled away at her own pace...I wished her good luck and then concentrated on my pace and the songs on my shuffle...At the one mile mark, I was on my time...and doing well...However, when we made the turn for the last half to the finish line, the wind was blowing head on and the road back was on an incline...all the way back...Again, not something I had trained for...At that point, I was off my mile time...and struggling quite a bit...But I knew I was halfway...and I wasn't going to stop...Then a super cool thing happened...My daughter, who had finished some 8 minutes or so ahead of me...came back to run in with me...She encouraged me to sprint it in the last 100 meters or so and set the pace for me...Thanks to her, I finished strong! 

I had two goals for this 5K...One was just to enter... and the second was to run it the whole way...

I met both those goals...

I didn't run it as fast as I had hoped...and I came in 26th out of 30 in my age group...But it wasn't about the time or what place I would come it...It was just about the process of setting a goal and taking the steps necessary to meet that goal...It was about the many conversations I had with Serena about the best way to train...It was about her encouraging me when I was about to give up...It was about showing up with 600 other people on Thanksgiving Day to run for a cause...It was about my husband being there to cheer me on...It was about  Shealynn postponing her visit to her sister's house to stay and run the race with me...It was about them saying they were proud of me...It was about making new holiday choices and starting new traditions...So, no matter what the final time was or what place I came in...I am definitely a winner in all the ways that truly matter...