First Race Anniversary

On December 1^st, 2012, I ran my first 5K race and it sucked.

I often ran short routes through my neighbourhood and thought I was ready. I saw that the Santa Shuffle was in Ottawa and boldly signed up. The race wasn’t awful because of the cold, or the organization of the race, or the fact that I had to get up extra early to bus my way across Ottawa; it was because I honestly still wasn’t up to running 5K straight.

Instagram from my first race

Running isn’t for everyone, but as I look back to two years ago, I can’t imagine that was me struggling with that race and walk/running the course. Since December 1^st, 2012, my love for running has only grown. I’ve run many more 5K races, a 10K race, three half-marathons, and already have half a dozen races of varying distances scheduled for 2015.

Honestly, though, I don’t know what happened. I fell in love with something that I think is really tough to do, I made some goals, I did some research, and I have slowly improved from that struggling 5K runner I remember two years ago.

This is not to say I’m a great runner now – I’m still slow and I still have those runs I struggle with – but if you had told me two years ago I would be running 21 kilometers without stopping I would have laughed. Now, I’m constantly inspired not only by the runners I follow, but with my own progress to run faster and further than I ever could have imagined.  

Two years later, hanging out in my race shirt