Kelly's Triathlon for Damian – The Run

Continuing with her goal to raise money for Damian’s Campaign and to complete her first triathlon, Kelly journals about training for the RUN component. Her first obstacle? A 5k marathon!

It was summer and I was feeling motivated.  I got to the gym regularly and while I wasn’t seeing the pounds and inches roll off, I was definitely feeling a lot more fit and had more energy.  So, with confidence backing me, I signed up for a 5km run at the end of October.

For most people, a 5km run might not seem like a big deal.  But, I had never run that distance in my life, not even on a treadmill, and had never run in a race.  The idea was that I needed to experience the competition aspect and see how it felt if I was going to do a triathlon.  Signing up was the easy part.  And, as the saying goes, all good things come to an end.

You know how they say that you shouldn’t run the day before the competition and should eat a high carb meal?   I took that to a whole new level.  I hadn’t run for over a month, the only thing running in my house were our noses.  The boys both had colds back to back and so, of course, I got back to back colds.  I was eating everything in sight and lack of sleep and low energy killed any motivation I had previously had.  I had nobody to run with, and no idea what to expect.

I had a client that I been showing homes to periodically and through conversation found out that he was doing the 21km course of the same race. He asked if, after a day of showings, I wanted to pick up our race kits together.  I had kind of decided that I was going to drop out of the race but, wanting to impress my client, I agreed.  I didn’t have to actually show up on the day.  On the way over, I told him “to be honest, I didn’t realize I had to pick up a kit”.  He looked at me as if I had two heads and explained that I had to register, get my shoe tag that would give me my race time, race number and t-shirt.  As we entered the hall, I was shocked by the thousands of motivated runners all there to register for what was sure to be torturous.

The evening before the big day, I discussed my options with my husband and was hoping he would say that I shouldn’t do it, considering I hadn’t been running at all.  Surely, he would agree and I could feel better about dropping out.  No such luck.  He said, “If you don’t do it, you are going to be sorry” and “worst case scenario, if you have to, you can walk a bit”.  I knew he was right, I had to do it and asked him to meet me at the finish line with the kids.  They would be my motivation if I had none of my own…..

Will she be able to complete the race? We will find out next week. 

If you would like to cheer her on and donate to the cause please visit the Holland Bloorview website.