My Second First 5k
We’re going back a bit, since I was so busy on Monday and decided to cheat a bit I’ll be talking today about the 5k I ran on Saturday. The inclination I had as we finished and posted pictures and talked about the race leading up to it was to call it my first 5k. You already know that this is an inaccurate statement. It was my second ever race, however, it’s hard to call the first one a 5k since I ran more than the 3.1 miles required. Technically it was my first 5k, but it didn’t turn out as a 5k, so it’s hard to think of it as my first. So this Saturday was my second first 5k, and my official first with my husband, so we’ll go with that.
We woke up so early on Saturday. Registration started at 7:30 am and we live a little over an our away, so to be there by 8-ish we had to be out the door by 7-ish which meant getting up no later than 6:30, thus alarms were set for 6. We very sleepily dragged ourselves out of the apartment and up to my home town to stand in the cold morning air as we waited for the race to start. It did warm up a bit as the race was ready to begin and the sun was nice and warming, but my fingers still protested the cold for half the race and my ears for all of it. Still, I’ll take the cool weather over the heat of my last race any day.
I let my husband run ahead, as usual, and ran with my sister for this 5k. I feel like I run better when I run with her. Something about having someone to keep me accountable to push myself as I run helps I think. She’s definitely in better shape than I am, but she doesn’t seem to mind slowing down to stick with me. The course had lots of shade and was mostly flat and straight. There was one hill in it and compared with the one we’ve been running in the graveyard, it was practically nothing. Erin and I ended with an average pace of 13:28, which is pretty good for me. I wanted to keep my pace around 14 min/mile so that I could keep it up throughout the race. We started doing like a 10 minute mile and had to slow down after the first five minutes or so. They say you do better on race days due to all the adrenaline. I think it’s a herd mentality, personally, at least for me. I found myself wanting to run faster to keep up with everyone else. I didn’t want to be left behind. We did end up coming in last of all the runners, but the walkers were still behind us, so that made me feel a little better. Our final time was around 41 minutes, which is better than I was expecting for 3.1 miles, so I’ll take it.
Logan finished about ten minutes faster than I did and got first place in his age group. Sure, there was only one other person in his age group, but it’s still pretty good for his first race, and he got a nice metal to commemorate. I was super proud of him. I made the mistake of switching shoes for the race. I wore the white shoes to see if they would be better for my ankle and got a blister in return. It’s not so bad, though. Other than that, it was a pretty good run. I wasn’t even all that sore afterward, nothing compared to my first race. My husband was feeling it pretty bad on Sunday, though, all through his core as well as his legs. We’ll just have to work harder for the next race.
We’re hoping to find a Turkey Trot to do near my in-laws for Thanksgiving, to give us something else to work up to. It’s harder to run, I think, when you don’t have a race to train for; at least for me. I’m not convinced that I’m a ‘run for fun’ kind of person, but running for a race is kind of fun. It’s a personal challenge, which is a thing I like. I’m a little nervous about the coming winter. I can’t imagine really cold weather will be good for my motivation to run outside. I was doing pretty good about running whenever I dropped my husband off, but I imagine the option to come home where it’s warm and not go out in the cold to run will be much too tempting. The cool thing about running, though, is all the support you get. As Erin and I started seeing people running past on their way back down the track many of them called encouragement as they passed. Even the walkers we passed on our way back were encouraging to us, it was great. I love that there’s a sport that’s both competitive without being mean spirited towards others. I think it’s pretty awesome.
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I am so glad you enjoyed it! And your last few sentences pretty accurately sum up why I love running and got hooked on doing races. You get the best of both worlds -competition, but most everyone is still very supportive and friendly and nice. It’s a great community of people to be a part of.