Sisterhood Virtual 5k
I signed up for the Sisterhood Virtual 5k back in October when I had high hopes of doing the c25k program after getting my heel healed up. Well, I’ve been spotty at best about caring for my heel (please don’t yell at me – I have a plan and will come up with a stretching and icing schedule to make it better). But I knew that I could walk it no matter what.
When I went to take the dog out this morning, though, this is what I saw:
(Image the snow a bit more pristine and the air white with flurries.)
I don’t have access to a treadmill, so outside was my only options. So I started making excuses – I can’t go out in the snow! What if I slip? It’s only 28° out there – that’s cold! I should just cancel. No one would blame me for not doing it today.
But I ignored those excuses. I bundled up, grabbed my iPod and camera, laced up my walking shoes, and headed off on the course I’d mapped yesterday. Here I am heading out for my virtual 5k:
For the first mile or so, I was thinking about all the girls at Disney – about the training they did and how awesome it will be tomorrow when their training all pays off. For the second mile, I was mostly concerned about not slipping – the terrain was downhill then uphill, and I had to be careful about where I was stepping.
For the third mile I started to marvel at how far I’ve come in a year. Last year the idea of walking outside in the snow and cold would have been laughable. In fact, the idea of doing a virtual 5k at all would have been weird. Not because I couldn’t have walked that far – I’m pretty sure my husband and I do it all the time when we go downtown to visit the museums – but because it wouldn’t have occurred to me to do it. I’m also starting to figure out that exercise is not something that takes up time that I could be doing something else, but is the something else that I should be making time for. I haven’t been 100% with exercise and training this past year, but each time I fell away from it, I went back. And I went back faster each time.
I snapped a couple of pics along the way, but then realized that the pics make it look like I was walking out in the country…I wasn’t, I’m in one of DC’s suburbs, so these were just carefully chosen shots to show the snow.
And my footprints on the snowy sidewalk:
And here I am back home, after my 3.5 miles (yes, longer than a 5k, but it was the closest route I could find that I actually wanted to take):
There are a couple more pics on my flickr page: Sisterhood Virtual 5k on Flickr.