Race Report (aka "Holy Crap! I Ran A Race!") and catching up

I have been shoddy at best about updating...marathon training officially starts in just a couple weeks (ack!) so you can expect the updates (especially the whining) to ramp up.

The past couple weeks have actually been good on the running front. I managed to get 16 miles in for last week, running 4 days. Not bad! On the downside, I have been mentally slagging. I stop and walk on runs way more than I used to. It's almost as if I allowed myself to do it once or twice, and now I do it whenever the impulse strikes me (which is too often). I need to get back my mental toughness (HA! more like get it in the first place!) before my marathon schedule starts.

On to the race! I ran the 10th annual Lew Blond Memorial 5K, held in memorial of a local school teacher who passed away from ALS. I was so excited and nervous for this - excited as it was my first race since my brief run with track in ninth grade, and nervous as I had no expectations on the logistics and reality of race running. But I knew I could run 3.1 miles, so it was just a matter of how everything fell into place.

My husband picked up my packet of goodies on Friday (he works not too far from where the race was held) so I just had to show up on Saturday morning - NICE! Race time was 8am, so I set the alarm for 6, had a bit of breakfast, and left home about 7 hoping for no traffic issues (you never know around here). I arrived with no problems, parked, and made my way to where the TON of people were congregating, waiting for things to get going. To me, the hard part was over (I am a worrier when it comes to that kind of stuff).

I didn't really have complicated goals about this one. Never having raced, it was an automatic PR right? According to my Nike+, my fastest 5K to date was 35 and change, so my goal was to finish in under 35 minutes. Hopefully, that would be no problem. And to HAVE FUN! Again, should be no prob.

As we all (somewhere near 1000 of us!) lined up near the start, my first thought was WOW! There are a TON of kids racing this! Seriously, there were kids everywhere. As we got started, I turned on my ipod and looked around, taking it all in. The first mile was a breeze, and I was trying not to run too fact, but it was tough! I was chasing a woman in a bright purple shirt who was just a bit faster than my comfort zone, and at mile one I was at 10:30 or so, so I was right where I wanted to be.

At the halfway point, they had a water stop, which I ran past. As soon as I did, I knew it was dumb. It was humid and sticky, and I should have stopped then. Maybe I wouldn't have needed to stop so many times after that had I taken advantage then! Live and learn right?

By 2 miles in, I was tired. But I could still see my purple shirted pacer in front of me, just a bit farther ahead. But it was getting tougher for me to keep up with her.

But I plugged along, and soon enough, we made the turn towards the finish. I actually had enough left in me to speed it up a bit at the end! I finished in 33:29, which I was EXTREMELY pleased with. I was 12/28 in my age group and 362 overall. I was flying solo (my husband was home with the munchkins) so I grabbed a snack and some water, cooled down a bit, and headed towards the car. On the way, I ran into the purple shirted woman and her son, and I thanked her for pacing me...she managed to finish in 32, which was a new PR for her!

All in all, it was a great first race! I definitely have room to improve, but thus far in my running, speed hasn't ever been a goal of mine. I can see speed work in my future! At least, once I figure out how to deal with it with no garmin and no track....