31:42!
I’m looking back through my small archive and I see that I didn’t set goals with this race here. That’s probably a good thing. I’ve been using MapMyRun.com to see roughly how far I was going during my workouts and I anticipated that a 5K should take me somewhere between 30-35 minutes. So I am pretty happy to get 31:42 because it is on the lower end of what I estimated.
Where to begin?
Sunday morning was beautiful, around 50 degrees and sunny. I was so psyched that I got up at 7 a.m., which is a rarity for me on any morning, let alone a weekday. I had a waffle and a banana. I could hear the announcer testing out the microphone for the race at the high school when I gave the dogs their morning walk.
When it was time to go, after sitting around watching You Tube videos about proper running form, I realized that I could not find my sneakers anywhere. At all. So I decided at that moment, fuck it, I was going to wear my everyday walking shoes.
Now, I love these shoes. I love them so much that when I wore a hole through the bottoms of my first pair (seriously), I bought a second. They fit my feet really closely and don’t have a lot of extra padding. And my gym sneakers, while they are name brand and relatively new expensive, they are too small (your feet swell when you exercise — keep that in mind when you buy running shoes!) and I think they were designed for a basketball court and not running.
So at the time, it seemed like a good idea to just wear these shoes.
But race day was probably not the day to change my mind about what shoes I was going to wear. Or to get stressed out about my running form. Because even though I had a satisfactory course time and my feet were generally OK yesterday, today, my calves are in full-force mutiny.
Other general thoughts:
- There was a woman who was pushing a double stroller with two larger kids in it. This was kinda a hilly course. I was impressed. I made it my mission to beat her (but I can’t remember if I did).
- Around the last mile and a half of the race, I settled behind a little boy who was running with his dad. He was about 10. He could run for a bit and then he had to walk. I would pass them while they were walking, but then he’d run by me again. I busted by him just before the finish line. So, yes, I beat a 10-year-old who couldn’t even run the whole race. Barely.
- This was a good first race because I was so familiar with the course— it’s what I’ve been training on, essentially. And I felt that confidence on race day.
