The 5K

Basically it was a disaster. I didn't finish. I won't be doing it again. I'm a little mad I paid money for the experience.

For the past few months I've been focusing on getting to the point where I can run three miles. But I forgot one other very important detail about 5Ks: there are a whole lot of people at them.

I was entirely unprepared for running in a crowd. I started near the back, hoping people would quickly stretch out ahead of me. But this didn't happen, and I found myself trapped in a throng of people. I couldn't speed up or slow down without running into someone. The trail was too narrow to really pass anyone, and the number of children, dogs, and people having conversations made that even harder. So for the first mile I was stuck going a little slower than I really wanted to. I also spent that mile concentrating really hard on my music and trying to control my breathing so I wouldn't freak out.

Finally, the crowd started to thin out, and I had a little more breathing room. But right around the time I was feeling better, the people who had reached the halfway point began passing me on their way back. The flood of people coming at me sent me back into panic mode, and I had to stop running.

I spent the rest of the race trying to keep myself from escalating into a full blown panic attack. I managed to calm down towards the end, but the thought of facing the crowd at the finish line caused my heart to speed right back up. I skipped the finish line and veered off to the car with Kevin.

The crappy part is that I actually think I could have finished if there hadn't been so many people everywhere. I probably could have run for a lot farther than I ultimately did at any rate.