Fort Worth Zoo Run

In two days I will be partaking in the fun known as Warrior Dash. If you know nothing about it, look it up. To prepare for said fun, a group of us decided we would participate in the Fort Worth Zoo Run. It is a 5K that takes you through the Zoo and the surrounding neighborhoods. I have participated in one other 5K before this. That was the Susan G Komen 5K about 3 years ago. I wanted to run it, but I wasn’t in the right area and walked for most of it.

This time I decided I was going to run and not stop. Mind you, the farthest I have ever run nonstop has been 2 miles and that was for boot camp. Did I mention I haven’t really worked out or even ran since I stopped in November? So yeah, the 5K was going to be fun.

I asked Ben about a week before how long a 5K was. He told me it was 2.5 miles. Awesome! I could totally do that. So I met up with my team the morning of…we were called the WolfPack and had all planned on getting fantastic wolf shirts to run in. Since my team was also made up of slackers, we never got the shirts. So I decided to make my own, at 10 o clock the night before...true slacker style. Yeah, apparently Michael’s does not sell Wolf patches or anything of the such! So I was stuck with a shirt that said Wolf Pack with two painted paw prints (I thought they were glittery patches, but ended up being stencils). Me so SMRT!

Needless to say, I got out there early with my perfectly made Running Fun playlist and stood around in the rain while we waited for out turn. It is always so exciting right before a run. There really is a weird energy of anticipation, fear (at least for me) and all around good spirits. There were also a crap load of kids...some parents are geniuses. Little Susie, this will be so much fun...here eat all of this sugar and go run to your hearts content. Make sure you annoy all of the other people here and not me though. Damn, those parents.

Finally, we lined up and started the ‘fun.’ I put my playlist on shuffle and was pleasantly surprised by the perfect first song: Animal by Miike Snow. That’s right, people! I am an animal running through the zoo! Watch out…

That was until I got to the first hill. Sweet Jesus! Where did that thing come from? I used to work at the zoo and I didn’t remember a hill. I magically got over it without stopping my run and continued. I passed all of the water areas, mostly because I figured I would never run again if I stopped. I even came to another awful hill, even bigger than the first. Once again, I made it over and didn’t stop.

I weaved through the neighborhoods and honestly thought I wasn’t going to make it. I kept my pace the entire time. Now mind you, an old man on a walker could have passed me but I still didn’t stop ‘running.’ Finally, I got to the best thing of all. The downward hill. I seriously almost started crying. I saw one of the volunteers shouting something so I took out my headphone and heard that I only had ½ mile left. Once again, tears almost came. Now I know this is nothing like a marathon, but it really is a big thing for me. I am not a runner and my body does not want me to be a runner, but somehow we both got through it.

Finally, I am almost to the end and I can see the finish line and that is when my iPod changed to the most perfect song ever….. Wolf Like Me by TV on the Radio. At this moment, I thought of my awesome friend Tara who finished her second marathon recently and had the most perfect song for her play at the end. This was mine. Without even knowing where the energy came from, I increased my speed to Old Man on Scooter and finished my first running 5K. And it only took me about 40 min! Haha, I told you I was slow. Later on that day is when I actually learned that I ran 3.1 miles. Had I known that going in, I probably would have walked.

So in true Warrior Dash training mode, I soon sped off to Dallas for the Pub Crawl for Cancer…