I had a great New Years day. Yesterday morning was the 5K Commitment Day Run with the START program. The weather was the best is had been in a while. I ran with Bonnie who I had been running with the past few weeks. During the training run her average pace was around 17:30 and toward the end she could run this pace and talk at the same time.

If was kind of cute, her general personality is very laid back, earthy kind of person, not competitive and had the right goal of just wanting to complete the 5K. She was thinking a good time would be 53:00.

When we got there, she said she was nervous. I was a little surprised as she was so laid back.
As we started to run she wanted to know what pace we were running right away. I told her "we are at a good pace." Basically my plan was just to listen to her breathing and that would determine how fast we would go (I did not tell her this). We did have a race plan to run 8 minutes and walk 2 minutes. At first she wanted to run straight through but I did not think that was a good idea. The competitive spirit was kicking in!

She did great. She finally stopped talking and just ran. She listened to everything I suggested. The last .3 miles I knew there was a chance that she could break 50 minutes BUT I did not tell her that. I did not want anymore emotion (good or bad) to get in the way. We were almost at the 3 mile marker and she said she wanted to walk just for a moment. That is when I said "I can tell you something that might make you want to keep going." She didn't care. She stopped for a few seconds, took a couple of breaths and then she ran like crazy to the finish and her Chip time was 50:09 and chip pace 16:09 min/mile!!!! I was so excited!!!! I teared up at the end. This was just such a great experience. Bonnie raced the best race she could, she pushed herself harder than I ever saw in any training run. I cannot stop thinking about this experience. I was there, I was Bonnie 7 years ago, run/walking that same pace. Her husband and 2 young children were there to cheer her on at the finish line

So many runner accomplished their goals and were so happy. After the race we got together at TGIF for some appetizers (I did not have any because I had a healthy lunch waiting for me at home). It was the best gathering with the participants and their families and they were so proud of their accomplishments.

Then top it off, I suggested to my family that we start the year off right with a healthy walk. We went for a nice 3ish mile hike at our local park. Jason was very tired but later in the evening he started to feel good about getting out. I hope he can remember this feeling. On January 10th he is going to start the program I am doing and he is going to need to remember that feeling to keep in motivated.

Happy New Year everyone!