When you’re young, as many of our 3-mile race participants are, “training” is a foreign concept. Why would you train for a race, especially one as paltry as three miles? You can just go out and run it. It’s no big deal. You have energy, and your joints and muscles will bounce right back – if they’re even affected at all.

I like to think of myself as young, too. So I decided I’d forego training before the 3 mile – positive thinking would get me through! (As a disclaimer, I’m not out of shape by any means – I work out pretty regularly and running is one of my favourite ways to do that. It just happens that I haven’t ran a step since I completed a half marathon at the end of March.)

Now, you might be thinking that if I ran 13.1 miles a few months ago, three should be a piece of cake. But as a runner I can tell you one thing for absolute certain – even a few weeks off leads to decreased ability. Your legs hurt. Your lungs hurt. Your whole body hurts, really. I know this, but I still couldn’t be bothered to actually train. Positive thinking, people. I’ll do it or I’ll die trying. (Not really – I think the agency might frown on their staff members dying during a work-related activity.)

So the day came. I brought my gym clothes and super sweet sweatband to work, and as the afternoon creeped closer I found myself getting very excited. But also very nervous, because while I love running for running’s sake, I’m also a competitive person by nature and I hate to lose.

I haven’t ran on gravel roads since high school. But it would be the same as pavement, right?

Wrong. Gravel makes your leg muscles work much harder. Your feet grip the ground in a way they don’t have to when you’re running on smooth pavement. I was less than a mile in and already looking at my GPS watch, willing it to say that the run was almost over. I hit one mile and mentally patted myself on the back – I hadn’t stopped, yet!

Then the terrain changed again and suddenly we were running on grass – my legs once again asked me what the heck I thought I was doing, and while I told them to shut up, they just wouldn’t listen. After scaling a ditch so deep I’m sure it’s on par with Saskatchewan’s highest hill, I gave in and walked. For about 30 seconds. And then I was mad at myself for giving in. So I picked up my pace trying to make up for lost time.

My super sweet headband felt heavy. The guy I was chasing had super long legs. (I’m 5’2 in a good pair of heels.) My under 8-minute-mile pace disappeared and my positive thinking had all but gone out the window when I realized that we were actually pretty darn close to the finish. I chased that long-legged guy all the way to the end, and then it was over.

Lucky for me, I somehow ended up in the wrong category (visitor, anyone?), so my just over 24 minute finish netted me a medal that I would not have won had I been in the correct one. (We have some super speedy staff.) You can bet that I’m hanging that medal up right beside the one I got for finishing the half marathon. Both are reasons to go forward with pride.