“What a sense of accomplishment!”
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Kristi Welhaven, Wellness Champion within Human Resources, participated in this year’s Heritage Classic 5K Run/Walk and was happy to share her experience with us: I had always been adamant that I hated running, especially as a form of exercise. One day I woke up and thought, “I should give it a try before putting it on the no-go list.” The race was advertised at a Wellness Champion meeting and I asked my colleagues to join me and my colleague Dani Esser did! We committed to training together using a Couch to 5K app, attended the DAHLC 5K workshop, 
signed our commitment card, and marked our training start date on our calendars. Starting out I was only able to run 90 seconds straight, by week 6 I ran for 22 minutes straight and felt like I’d conquered the world! The weekend prior to race day we did a practice 5k and completed it. This was the most either of us had ever run at one time in our entire lives. The Heritage Classic was a bit harder due to the warm sunny day but we ran the whole way, just under 36 minutes. What a sense of accomplishment! I’ve realized I really enjoy (wouldn’t say love) running now because of setting goals, quantifiable results, and rewarding feeling. I am a results-oriented exerciser, I like being able to say I ran a certain distance in a certain time. We plan to do many more 5K’s and to try to improve our time but there are no current plans for longer distances.