Ask and ye shall receive...

So as my 2nd 5K approaches, and since I've been raising money for it (thanks to those of you who have donated so far. Those of you who have not should do so RIGHT NOW! It's for Race for the Cure which is an amazing cause!!!) I've had a lot of people ask how my 1st 5K went. My answer: "Meh." So, since it's nearly midnight, I'm so tired I have ZERO inner filter and inquiring minds want to know, let me just TELL you how my 1st 5K went. It sucked. Big time.
I was so excited for it, I can honestly tell you I've not worked that hard for anything ever in my life. I ran in rain and shine. In snow, in fog and on ice. When it was 9 degrees. When I was sick. I'd been running about 3 miles for the entire week beforehand so I knew I was ready. I was SOOOOO not ready.
I started off pretty good. I still run pretty slow, but I was doing okay. Until about a mile into it when runners at the beginning started passing us on their way to the finish line. (Seriously, some guy ran it in like 16 minutes. I hate him.) It really kicked me in the head. Was I that much of a loser? Maybe I was...then we get a little ways farther and this little girl who was with one of the race volunteers said, and I quote, "You guys are going to have to walk faster than that! You're not even halfway!" Imagine what a balloon looks like when you let all of the air out of it and it flies all around the room as it deflates. That was my spirit. My friend Heather (who was running next to me--not walking--running) said to the volunteer, "I'm coming back to run that little girl over with my truck!" Ahhh...my little ray of sunshine. Love her. That wasn't even the worst part! I suddenly saw: The Hill. Holy effin crap. The Hill. It seemed to go straight up and I thought that if I wasn't going to die, I wanted to. I somehow made it to the top but had to walk a little bit. (Like 10 steps or so, but still....I was determined to run the whole thing!) This made me feel even crappier. I was trying to get "in the zone" and forget that it was hotter than Hades (I'd been used to running in the cold winter mornings, not warm spring afternoons), my body was throwing a fit that would rival any 3 year old being dragged out of a candy store and I'd just wussed out and walked. So I'm focused. And I'm running. One foot in front of the other. I see the halfway point (seriously? I'm ONLY halfway????) and then I see my little family. My husband and my son and one of my best friends and my mother in law. They have balloons. They have a sign that says "Congratulations, Mommy!" It was the sweetest gesture in the world, but it made me cry which made me lose the focus I'd been working so hard on. I couldn't wave or acknowledge them because then I would cry harder which would make it even worse. I felt like I totally DID NOT deserve the encouragement of my sweet little boy. I was struggling just to keep going. But for some crazy reason I did. And when I was about a half mile from the finish line, some friends who had already finished the race but are just so amazing that they had to do it again run past us in the opposite direction. Really? You're going to do it TWICE? I hate you. We see the finish line, but I'm not sure where I should be running so I was going to just take a shortcut, skip the finish line and get to my family. (THEY were my finish line!) Everyone was yelling at us to go to the finish line, "Come around! Come around!" (They are SOOOO lucky I couldn't breathe...the only response I had to that involved profanity.) I finished. I was just glad it was over and I could barely walk for 2 days afterward.
So yeah yeah yeah, I did it. Good and fine. But I didn't do it WELL. Remember that I'm not a mediocre person. I'd rather not do something at all than only do it halfway and even though, technically, I finished (and not even last, thanks to a couple of lesbians, a REALLY chubby lady and man and a 90 year old woman), I didn't do as well as I wanted to. Was it my best? Probably. Shouldn't that be good enough for me? Sure. But it's not. I wasn't proud of my performance and it was actually a really deflating experience.
So now I have another one coming up. I didn't run for a month after that 5K, mostly because I'd had 2 oral surgeries and wasn't allowed to, but I've been training for the last 2 weeks. My goal is to be running 4 miles by May 8th when I run, since if I can run 4 then maybe the 3.whatever won't make me ask the Lord to just take me Home.  But today I went 2.5 miles and it nearly did me in. I've never sweat so much in my life. I just couldn't go any further. How the H am I going to be ready to run this 5K in time? Is it going to be another really crappy experience, this time worse since I've raised money for this amazing cause that I really believe in? I guess the money has been raised, that's all that is expected of me, but still...I just feel like I should be able to do better and I can't and I hate that. I know I could use a little perspective here and I probably am being too hard on myself but that is why I've not posted about the race. And don't even ASK to see pictures. GAAAAA! Not pretty. Anyhoo..there you have it. I'm going to bed.