Heels and Hills and Him 5K

heading out Saturday

Keelie & I participated in the Heels and Hills and Him 5K this past Sunday. Heels and Hills is a non-profit dedicated to promoting and increasing involvement in women's fitness (this event included men's fitness as well ;) ). It was held in Las Colinas in the Williams Square area.

Keelie and I decided to make an overnight trip of the event since we both live 30+ minutes away from where the race was held. We picked up our packets Saturday afternoon at the Holiday Inn Express, where we also stayed that night. It was a very nice hotel room, by the way. We lounged around, went to a movie, ate dinner, and did a little shopping. Then it was back to the hotel to get a good nights sleep for the race.

Race morning...shrinking a bit!

We both popped up at 6 am when our alarms went off and were out the door by 6:30. The race site wasn't far from our hotel so we were there in plenty of time. Our 5K got started at 7:45. The announcer said "GO" and we were off. I told Keelie to definitely not stay behind with me. I only planned on jogging a bit of the 5K and she was going to try to run the whole thing. This was my 4th 5K to participate in, but my first since having my DS procedure back in June. I have been working out for a little while now so I knew I could do this. Would it be easy? No, but I could do it. My original goal was to use my C25K program to jog in intervals throughout the race. I started the program and jogged the first 1:30 min and 3 min times, but I was quickly tiring out. I then changed my goal. I knew there was no way I'd make it through the 3.1 miles if I did C25K the whole time so I decided to just walk fast and "try" to jog again at the end, if at all possible. The weather wasn't too bad Sunday morning and I very much enjoyed the sprinkle of rain that trickled down on me for about a min during the 5K. It was a much needed refresher. The race course went down one road, looped around and went back up the other side to make the 3.1 miles. As I was just on the way down the first stretch of road I spotted Keelie on the opposite side of the road jogging. She was doing great. I kept trucking along. Having strangers around me helped me to go faster. I didn't want them to do better than me, especially if they were older than I was. Ha! That helped me to keep my pace up. I hit the home stretch and spotted Keelie waiting for me at the corner. She'd finished and come back to wait. She walked with me for a few minutes, but with the finish line in site I decided to jog the rest of the way in. It wasn't easy and about halfway to the finish line I sure did want to quit. I didn't though. How embarrassing would it have been to quit with everyone now watching me?! Ha! I jogged in and crossed the finished line. The announcer even called out "Way to go 5K finisher Kristi!" (My name was on my bib.)

Having my chip time removed just after finishing.

I finished! Yay! And in under an hour. I wasn't sure of my exact time but I knew it had taken less than an hour, which was a big accomplishment for me. I'm pretty sure my previous 5Ks had taken longer than that. We grabbed water, bananas, and went to take some pictures, and stretch some. I could feel the burn in my legs! Then they posted the 5 & 10K results. We walked over to check out our times. It looked like they had only posted the first 20 people from each of the categories so I wasn't listed. I knew I was nowhere near the top. However, Keelie had registered in the Athena category for women over 150 lbs, instead of her age range, which is an option offered to the women participants. Right away I spotted Keelie's name on the list. SHE GOT FIRST! She hadn't seen her name yet and was looking lower down on the list so I pointed it out to her. It was SO exciting! We were THRILLED. FIRST! Amazing! And she jogged the 5K in 32:34.7 min, which was two minutes faster then the 5K she did in June. Whoo hooo! I was soooo proud of her. Everyone else's results weren't going to be posted until that evening on the website so we took off and headed to breakfast at Corner Bakery. I did get my results Sunday evening though. I did the 5K in 52:27.2 min, which probably consisted of 5-6 min of jogging and the rest walking. I came in 191st out of 209. I was pleased. I did it in under an hour and wasn't last. Hehe. That made me happy!

5K finishers at Williams Square

Filling up on protein & fruit after the race. It was delish!

It was a fun event and we plan to be back in May for the all women 5K. Keelie & I commented on the way home how different this was for us. In the past, getting together would consist of going to splurge on super unhealthy food until we made ourselves sick and then head off to some sedentary activity. Who were these girls that just did this 5K?!?! Oh, that's right...the new us! ;-)

Check out official race photos here. Just plug in BIB Numbers 2132 and 2293. You can see Keelie & my photo finishes!