Charlotte's First (Second) 5K

Today I walked a 5K. The last time I ran a 5K I was in high school. This all started about 2 months ago when I …well I don’t really remember what motivated me, but I ended up in a running shoe store with an incredibly enthusiastic running shoe store owner.  This nice gentleman told me lots of things about running, and slowly building up a pace, and all kinds of wonderful easy doable things I could do to turn myself into a runner. One of the things he told me about was the Sue Paterno 5K for Special Olympics. Now, I don’t know how to explain a State College person, but it’s a thing. You think you know an obnoxious USC fan, or an overzealous Oregon fan. That’s adorable. Penn State is CRAAAAYYYYYYY. This is how much people love Penn State: there’s a “State College Vortex” that people ARE HAPPY ABOUT; it’s only warm (but still deathly humid) three months out of the year, and people not only tolerate the cold, BUT THEY’RE STILL OVER THE MOON ABOUT BEING HERE (so basically the weather is solid about 1 month a year) ; people wait in line for over 2 hours to get ONE TINY BOWL OF ICE CREAM from the Penn State Creamery; 80,000 people go to football SCRIMMAGES<- 5="" a="" driving="" each="" hours="" make="" nbsp="" of="" out="" p="" this.="" to="" way="" weekend="">

This is just some of the explanation. You really have to personally witness a tailgate to understand the insanity of this. This nice shoe sales man is more State College-y than any other person I have ever met since we moved here.

This wonderful man informed me of this annual fundraiser for Special Olympics, lead by Sue Paterno, a preserved local hero in this town. He told me that two months probably wasn't enough time to be able to train to run a 5K. This particular gentleman really likes his running.

Long story short, here I was, standing in a big group of people at the foot of Beaver Stadium, getting ready to walk a 5K.

The walk itself, yeah, it was a thing. I might have enjoyed more of a stroll than a power walk. My favorite supporters were two people holding up a sign that said “Embrace your pace!” Although we weren’t the last people across, some people could have run three 5Ks in the amount of time it took us to walk this one.

As we approached the stadium (the finish line is the 50 yard line on the football field), Pharell’s “Happy” came on. I was sandwiched between two of my favorite people (David and Pat, one of the sorority advisors) and I was feeling great! We ran to the finish line. It was an amazing experience running down the corridor of people screaming and cheering for us as we finished!! 

The feeling I got after crossing the finish line was…well it was embarrassing. We walked a 5K for peet's sake. But HOLY CRAP WAS I ONE HAPPY CAMPER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Going forward, the plan is to get general health and well being checked up from my doctor, and then to keep going for it! (Slowly.)