The hills were the enemy- LA Cancer Challenge 5k benefiting the Hirshberg Foundation

Yesterday was the LA Cancer Challenge 5k benefiting the Hirshberg Foundation.  A 5k race that I thought would be hard only because I had not been well recently.....not because of all the hills on the course! Clearly my legs were not prepared for it and neither was my head!
The first mile....well I lost my mind and started way too fast because too many slow people in the front made for a difficult start.  I felt like I was running my first 5k back in March...and that was hard on the mental aspect of that race. By mile 2 I got things somewhat under control but I was still feeling the pain and I knew I was in trouble as far as what was left in the tank....mile 3 was a killer...all uphill and my quads were feeling it...burning and burning....all the way to the finish line...did not do my best time but I placed 540 out of 2045 runners...not too bad.  Now all I  can think about is in 2 weeks I got to race again and twice the distance.....and today I feel a little nervous about this...
and lets not forget I have the main goal still ahead of me...complete my fist half marathon...yesterday I know I was nowhere near ready for 13.1 miles...good thing I still have several weeks to go....must focus on building more endurance.

They had a kids race and the boys ran it! It is a great way to teach them to 1. move and 2. give back.  They are still very young but I did try to explain why we were there and that it was about more then just putting one foot in front of the other.

Getting to the finish line!!

The boys before their race!