Race day has come and gone! My beautiful friend Lindsey (who actually used to lead the girl’s bible study I went to when I was 14!) ran with me, and I was so thankful for her. :) How fast the training and even the actual race flew by. Time always amazes me; it’s a constant reminder to savour the amazing vacations, coffeedates, long conversations and other beautiful things in our lives and also a reminder that everything unfavourable will soon be over.

I was definitely looking forward to this race, but still giddy and nervous, because in my training I had never run this far! The farthest I had ran was 7 miles (~12km) and the race was close to 9.5 miles and 15km! Surprisingly, I felt awesome!! The worst part was the first 5km. It’s always that way for me. Somehow it’s getting my brain into the mindset that, “Okay. Jamie. You’re going to be running for another hour and a half. So, just deal with it. Think about how beautiful this day is!” — Once I get myself in the groove I’m sooo good to go! Then when we hit the 12km mark I was so stinkin’ pumped and happy! Every step I ran was longer than I had ever run before–such a cool feeling. I definitely got a second wind and pretty much just felt like smiling while I was listening to another amazing Hillsong track.

I love people. Especially people that really make you go, “Hm. God was feeling extra creative when He made you.” Let me explain a humourous fact, first off. The Chilly Chase had 5km, 10km and 15km options. Lindsey and I had both run a 10km race before, and knew it wasn’t that challenging for us. We wanted something to push us, so we signed up for the 15km. Perfect. Not too long, definitely not short. WELL. It seems that everyone who chose to do the 15km were like…serious runners. Hear me out here, say, if you wanted to run a race but didn’t really train that hard and weren’t in super amazing shape, you’d probably chose the 10km option, right?! Just over an hour of running? Right. Lindsey and I quickly realized that we were going to come in last. Completely last. Hahah!! In our defense, if we would have ran the 10km we would not have been last, but because we were the only “non-runners” who chose the 15km we enjoyed our last place finish. I love that! We were laughing so hard because we’re thinking, “Okay. This actually makes sense. It’s January, it’s COLD (below freezing when we started at 9AM!), 15km is a longer distance than most folks can do & there are only a small group of runners (probably only 100 or so did the 15km?) Then we felt better about ourselves. Regardless, we totally made it in under the time we wanted! We were hoping to make it under 1 hour and 55 minutes and I think we crossed at 1 hour and 52 minutes by our timing chips! Yahoo!! And I felt SO awesome during the last 3 kilometres or so that I think a half-marathon may be in my near future. What a great day!

[EDIT] — totally realized now, on January 22nd as I write this, that I never continued WHY “I love people.” Well, we were at about the 12km mark, and the “turtle” who follows behind all the runners comes up on his bike. He’s talking to Lindsey and I and first of all says, “I’m just gonna hang out here with you until you finish!” We’re both looking at each other thinking: oh please, no. Eventually he rides off and starts moving cones and starting to clean up (we are the last afterall!) He returns on and off every few minutes and keeps asking us what we’re eating right now, when we had water last, what we’re going to eat after. I said, “I don’t know, this is my first 15k, but probably just some food!” Then he goes into a big long explanation about what we should be eating and drinking. All great, necessary information, but ahh, I just like to be left alone while I’m running. ;) SO! Then he comes back and offers a protein drink. We both say we’re fine. A few minutes later he hands it to Lindsey and rides off. Then he’s calling from behind for me to have some too. I know for a fact it was protein powder mixed with water, and there is only one kind of protein powder in the world I can have, and that’s made from rice protein. 99.99% sure it would be soy or milk protein in it! I keep saying no, no, no and finally I said (all while running!!) “No, I really can’t. I will get sick. Really sick if I have soy or milk, and I know that’s what it is. Really, I ran 12.5km last week and came home and had an APPLE. And I’m FINE. I’m feeling awesome. So great. REALLY. THANK YOU.” AND then he starts talking about how if I’m lactose-intolerant I can get lactose free protein powders. Um, nope, then they are soy protein powders. Can’t have soy. Then he said I can take lactose pills to help me digest it. Nope, I said. I’m allergic to not only the lactose in the milk, but also the casein and whey–two other milk proteins. He leaves. 10 minutes later he’s back saying, “Do you girls need to phone anybody? Let them know when you’ll be done?” Hah, it was if Lindsey and I thought we were going to finish the race in an hour or something and need to phone all our cheerleaders to let them know we were, in fact, slow. Once again, NO. We’re perfect, thank you SO much for the help. Polite smile and keeping running. So that’s why I love people. They make me laugh.

Oh, the BEST part? Eating. Sitting. Eating. Sitting. For the rest of the day. My family came after church to cheer me on and watch me finish, then I went home and had leftovers for lunch. Then showered. Then we went out for lunch (yes, another lunch!), then I spent the afternoon snacking and sitting on the couch watching TV while editing. Then we went out for dinner and went to see Benjamin Button at my favourite theatre in the whole world (that’s a random Google Images picture, there a never that many folks outside! It’s actually famous because it’s been featured in a few Smallville episodes.) Oh and I ate a LOT of popcorn at the theatre and groaned like an old woman the whole night at how much my knees and joints hurt. GOOD DAY!

P.S. Did I mention it was the first sunny day we’ve had in about 10 days? Soooo beautiful! I saw an amazing sunrise and the mountains were in full view the whole time I was running.

Us with our little medals: Hah! Lindsey isn’t distracted in the picture to the right, it’s just the awkward thing when two people are taking your photo and she’s looking at her dad and I’m looking at my mom. ;)

Leave it to my mother to record a video of us crossing the finish line. Gotta love her!

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