Wednesday, September 17, 2003

In pain, but so worth it...

On Sunday morning, I ran in the “Race for the Cure” to raise money for breast cancer research and to support local cancer victims. I managed to raise over $170, counting checks that were handed to me and my own donation on top of the pledges that were made online. BTW, if you’d like to donate, my fundraising page is still open until October 17th.

I ran the 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) in 30 minutes and 28 seconds. Not too bad, considering that the last time I ran a 5K was in 1986 (26 minutes), and that was the only time since high school track team in 1971 (19 minutes). I’ll be turning 50 in 2 months, but I felt like 90 on Monday morning. I woke to find I could hardly lift my legs, but going down stairs was the worst. You use an entirely different set of muscles running than bike riding, so all those hundreds of miles of biking to work I’ve been doing didn’t help much, other than upping my stamina. My legs are finally recovering, and I’m not shuffling along in major pain like I was Monday.

And yeah, I’ll run again next year, because it was a very inspirational thing to run with all those people who were there for the same purpose. There were 43,000(!!!) folks, split between several walks and runs, both 5K and one mile and women-only and coed. It was a beautiful morning and such a positive vibe in the air!

- Bob Woods