When your friends register you for a road race

From looking at me, you can CLEARLY tell that I am by no means a runner. My idea of working out is walking around the mall or from the car into subway.

My general attitude towards running:

My friends decided it would great if we all ran a race together so they went ahead and signed me up. Fortunately, it's only 5k. Unfortunately that is still 5k more than I have ever run and the race is in two weeks. So basically you can sum this up as I am 100% screwed.

In order to prepare myself a little for what will quite possibly be my demise, I downloaded Map my Fitness. which is an app that tracks how long you've run, how far etc.
I went for a "run" (walk/run/mostly walk) yesterday and this was the result:

Not as bad as I had anticipated. Honestly it was the calories I burned that kept me going at all which I now is the worst way to measure a workout but hey at least SOMETHING was motivating me to keep going.

And just as always, I am rewarding myself today with McDonalds for supper. I live an extremely balanced lifestyle.

Have any of you ever run a road race? Please give me some of your tips so I don't perish in a 5km race!

No one should go at it alone

I know I'm not the first and I won't be the last to talk about this, but I really feel like it's so important to keep talking about it.

The death of Robin Williams was tragic, there is no other way to describe it. A positive outcome is that maybe now depression (and all other mental illnesses) will be the more openly talked about topic it needs to be.

I have personally dealt with anxiety my entire life, but it didn't really come to head until the 9th grade when I lost my grandfather. I was staying up all night worried that something bad was going to happen to myself or someone else I cared about it. Dealing with it was not easy, and it definitely still rears it's ugly head sometimes but for the most part I have learned to, I wouldn't say control it, but I've learned to deal with it better.

Depression is something I experienced for a brief period of time, you might just be able to call it hormones. However, I have many friends who have gone through serious depression issues. At the age of 15 I was dealing with friends having suicidal thoughts and feeling alone and unwanted. I was obviously in no place to give amazing advice, but I was there for them. At 3am when they were reaching their low points they would call me and talk it out. At school when they wanted to just give up, I was a shoulder to lean on.

A key in making mental illnesses a talked about manner, is to be actively listening. People can always talk to you, but they won't accomplish much if no one is really listening. When someone comes to you, LISTEN. Make it known that you want to listen. Don't let anyone go through this struggle alone, they don't have too. 

I'm sure there are others out there who were in both my position and my friend's. These mental diseases should not be treated as simple emotions. There are chemicals causing this, and this needs to be addressed. You wouldn't shame someone for going through chemotherapy, so why would you shame someone for taking anti-depressants or any other kind of medication?

You can point them in the right direction if you're unsure, but in the end, we all just need one person to tell us it's going to be ok.