On the day of the race, I woke up from my nightmare, grateful that I didn’t have to run my 5K twice. I verified with Mike that he didn’t invite a family with too many children and dogs. I was assured by him that if 7:15 am came around and my family hadn’t arrived that he would leave without them. He pointed at his shoes the minute he put them on.

Stacey, Dan, Mom and Reed all came right on time and we piled into my mom’s car to go to the race. The Calvary Baptist Church Choir sand the national anthem and the race started 15 minutes late (Mormon Standard Time). I ran really well and we started the race to the song, Love Shack by the B-52’s. I didn’t realize it, but the race went right by Port O’Call, which is a local club that I love to go to. When I ran past it, I pointed and said, “Look, it’s Port!” The people around me could have cared less and just kept on running.

During my run, my goal was to get past the guy with the shirt that said, “The Kat is Back!” I just wanted to pass him and then I would be happy. Each time I passed him, though, I’d look up and there he was in front of me again. I kept trying to pass him. I thought that maybe he didn’t stop for water at the aid stations and that’s how he got past me each time. By the fourth time I passed that guy, I realized that it wasn’t the same guy. The guy I had been chasing and passed had brown hair, but this time it was a blonde in a “The Kat is Back!” shirt. Apparently, they were a team of runners and I was passing several guys.

By the time we got to The Gateway, I was pretty tired. When you looked at the race map, it looks like you finish when you get to The Gateway, but that’s not the case. No, the finish line was at the other end of The Gateway Plaza. I’ve walked that route before in the cold and it felt like a mile then, but at the end of my race, that stretch of sidewalk and road felt like an eternity. Before I could see the finish line, I finally called out, “Where’s the damn finish line!” None of the runners were listening to me, but I’m sure they were thinking the same thing.

I finished the race in 34:15 minutes. That is 5:48 minutes faster than the last time I ran a 5K. I came nowhere near winning for my division, but I beat my best time by over five minutes, so I didn’t care. There was some drama getting our finish times. They had them all listed in the paper on Sunday morning for the marathon runners, but the 5K participants had to wait until they were posted online on Monday. It wasn’t until then that I knew that I finished so well. I had forgotten to start my stopwatch when the race started, so I just had to guess on my time. I thought that I did pretty well, but I wasn’t sure.

My family took me to Lamb’s Restaurant to celebrate. It took me over an hour to find them because of the crowds. They thought that I hadn’t finished yet and were really getting worried about me. Little did they know that I finished about two minutes before they got over to the finish line. I was able to run it faster than they could drive it, Yeah!