I had every excuse not to run today. I haven’t run since April 3rd. I’m still trying to get over an illness. I had plans to go try on bridesmaid dresses with my friend 90 minutes away from where I live. My new friends from church encouraged me to run the race. At first I said, nahhh, because of my plans later that day. Then I realized the race was early enough and that I could probably run it and still make it down to visit my friend. And so I did it, I ran the race.
The race started at the high school in our town, not far from our house. The race started at 8 so we decided to leave at 7:30. Not the greatest idea… the race was HUGE! The parking lot was PACKED and we had to park at the middle school. The walk from where we parked to the starting line was probably almost a half mile. Well, hey, at least it was a nice warm up! I snagged my race bib and t-shirt and hurried to the starting line. I found my friend that was walking with his dad and we anxiously awaited the start of the race.
A little after 8am we were off and running. I found a guy that was running at a comfortable pace for me and decided to stick with him. I kept up with him for a while, then heard someone calling my name. It was a friend of mine that I used to work with at the nursing home. She ran with me for a while, then took off ahead of me. I had picked up my pace a bit and definitely felt it as I continued… my pace for my first mile was just over 11 minutes. My second mile was closer to a normal pace for me, just over 12 minutes per mile. And after two miles, I was really pooped. I kept seeing people around me walking and thought man I just need to stop for a minute. But I kept telling myself not to stop, that I had places to go and people to see, and that I have run an entire 10k without stopping… I can handle this 5k!
I crossed the finish line and my Endomondo showed 3.24 miles in 38:59, an overall pace of 12:02 which is pretty darn good for me. My unofficial 5k time per Endomondo was 37:22. Official results haven’t been posted yet… but either way, I am proud of myself. I’m proud of myself for getting up early when I would have rather slept in. I am proud of myself for keeping to my goals of running a race every month even though I haven’t been training. I am proud of myself for running hard and not stopping, because I know I can do it. I am so proud of myself!
RD on the Run 