We came, we ran, we went out for lunch afterwards

On Saturday, Gordon and I ran our first-ever race, 5K in the Cornwall Run to End MS!

My bib. I can't tell you how cool it was to have a bib!

Our friend Sigrun was there running the 10K (she won for her age group!) She was giving us some helpful advice just before the start of the race. She started running about two years ago and is my inspiration! I'm not sure what Gordon was pondering in this photo. The competition?

There's my handsome hairy-legged running companion!

A few minutes before the start. We were excited!

Since it was our first race, we each bought one of the professional photos shot at the finish line. That guy behind Gordon is 81 years old!! I hope I'm still running at that age. Gordon did really well. He finished with a time of 26:41:4,  65th place out of 241, and  46/96 in the men's group.

As you can tell, I was pretty happy! Neither of us had been running outside a lot before the race, so I knew I'd be a bit slower than inside (running track with flat surface), plus I seem to have developed a shin splint. My goal was to finish in under 30 minutes, and I did: 29:51:9. I placed 116/241, and 51/144 in the women's group, and 11/28 out of my age group (which I was at the top of!) so I was pretty darn pleased.  

I really wanted to run a race within our first year of running, and I'm so glad we did this. We are both looking forward to the next one. It felt great running across the finish line. I've always been reasonably fit and active, but I never, ever thought I would be a runner.

Here's our friend Sigrun receiving her medal.

Sigrun's hubby Dave took some pics of us down by the St. Lawrence River after the race.

We were all feeling great! After this, we had a nice lunch together.

Next goal? 10k! And we're going to work on running faster now.