Congrats, erendis!

Good job Erendis! My first 5K is in one month and I can't wait!

Wohooo! PR's are good anyway they happen. What is it about health races that makes the weather do that? I did a race for the Surgical Intensive Care Unit and it was pretty brisk wind on that day. Felt like it was ripping into me and it took a good chunk of time to get warmed up to comfortable. Send an email to the organizers of the race with both positive and negative feedback so they can be better next year!

Awesome, Cyndi! First races are special; consider getting a frame for your bib. Your second race will be different because you know what to expect. My second race was a Turkey Trot too.

Congrats All4mine! You did great given the conditions you had to work against - that's all that matters! And hey, we only get stronger and faster from here right? I just discovered today that my 'official' time on the race website is listed as 37:50..... A whole FOUR minutes more than my Garmin result. That puts my average pace at about 12:12, which, frankly, every time I checked my pace, I never even SAW the number 12 on my watch , so how can I 'average' that? I'm trying not to get all over excited about it...what I DO know is I ran harder than I ever have in 3 months, my body is STILL feeling it today and I'm proud of the accomplishment!

Sounds like there were a few of us that ran our 1st 5k this weekend!! Yay everyone! We did it!! My 1st 5k was this past Saturday. I wasn't too nervous. I wansn't aiming for any time or to beat anyone else and I didn't really expect anything so there was no pressure. No matter what I was going to PR. My husband and some friends ran it, a couple friends watched. It was nice to have so many people there for support. It was a small race... just 250 runners and walkers at a community college. My biggest problem before the start was deciding to run in a tshirt or my long sleve running shirt. It was barely 40 degrees with a good wind so it was really cold when you were just standing there... but I was worried I would get too hot. I decided to go long sleve since that is what I have been running in lately. Good choice, the wind made it super cold. I did get warm toward the end... but not bad at all. Although I didn't have any goal besides to just finish and run the whole thing without walking. I wanted to be around 34:00 since I had been running the 5k distance in about 34:30. I started out in the back and when we started I had a personal debate about if the speed I was going was too fast or if was about the same as what I normally ran. It was hard to tell with everyone running around me. I was worried becuase my husband had talked to me about not paying attention to everyone becuause the majoity of people go out too fast. At about half way through I realized... I went out to fast. I felt like I should only have a half mile left and I still had the hill left. I just kept thinking... I can do this, I did it last week, and I only have a mile left. I lost my watch and I never noticed the mile signs so I had no idea where I was in the race or how I was doing time wise. In a way nice becuase I ran with how I felt but suck becuase I couldn't tell where I was. When I had about a quarter of a mile left my husband met me and ran the rest of the way with me. He started talking to me, asking me how I was feeling. It was nice. I didn't really talk and he didn't expect me to. Then he started picking out people in front of me saying "you can take that lady in black, you can take her, come on that's one more place." after that lady I got, "ok you can take the guy in orange, pick it up just a little bit." After that man, there were three people in a group quite a bit ahead and my husband said. "You can take all three of those people. easy, that's three more places you get. you can do it." SO I sprinted hard core and and since I was the last of our group to finish they were all screaming for me as I came around the corner telling me I had them, then after I passed them more people started yelling for the people I just passed so I ran harder becuase I didn't want to loose those places. I couldn't breathe I was running so fast... but it was all of 15 seconds and then I finished!!! It was great. Official time of 31:54!!! I couldn't believe it. I knew that since I went out fast I maybe hit 33:00... but I never expected to get below 32. One of the girls I passed congratulated me and told me I had a great kick at the end. That meant a lot. I tried to thank her and I think I said nice run back... but I was trying to catch my breath. I never would have passed those people if my husband wasn't there. So I owe a lot to him. He was such a great motivator. He then told me I didn't run hard enough if I had that much of a kick at the end.... I said I ran plenty hard. He didn't think I was going to be able to pass those people. So I totally surprised myself. I shouldn't have been since it seems like every week of C25k I was surprised I could run as long as I did. Now I have the race bug. During the race there were moments where I thought I was stupid for doing it... and then I finished and I was so happy with my time it makes me want to work for a 5k under 30. I can't wait until spring!! Thanks everyone for all your wonderful advice and support throughout the program!!I couldn't have done it without you!

My first race report! (It's long, and I also posted to the main forum, so apologies if you see it twice.) The venue was Holyrood Park, Edinburgh. Now, I live on the other side of the country and only go to Edinburgh when I absolutely have to, so there were a couple of things I hadn't thought about. Leaving the station on Saturday morning (after a stop at the pharmacy to buy some emergency safety pins in lieu of the ones I'd left on my desk), I realised that I had no idea where Holyrood Park actually is, besides having been told that it was 'within walking distance' of the station. Luckily, I found some police officers and found the park quickly, and therein lies the second problem. I knew that I'd be running up and around Arthur's Seat, and I knew that Arthur's Seat was a big hill, but, you know, there's something different about knowing that something is a big hill compared with actually seeing it, and this, then, in my fell-off-the-wagon-over-Christmas condition, is what I'd be tackling. But no matter. My goals for this race were: 1) To finish. 2) To not walk. 3) To not come last. The route we were to follow was a steady incline, followed by a sharp incline, followed by a flatter-but-not-flat incline, followed by a downhill section almost to the finish line, where it would flatten out again. The first kilometer was tough. As I passed the 1km marker at 7:09 -- and one of the great things, especially since all the spectators were down at the finish line, was that there was no city noise, so us back-of-the-packers could hear the cheering from people as they passed the markers before we could see them, and that gave us a boost -- I knew that I wasn't going to make it without walking, but I told myself that I would get to 10 minutes before I started walking. That took me ~250m of the way up the sharpest part of the incline, and then I walked to the 2km marker. That was an ~11:30 split. I had no idea the human body could move that slow, but mine can! At 2km, wonderful, wonderful volunteers shouted at us that we were past the worst part, and I started running again. I lasted about three minutes, until I came around the corner onto St Margaret's Loch and straight into a 40mph headwind. At this point, the course is much less steep and there are no trees and it's starting to curve back around the Seat, so I could see pretty far ahead, and I saw three people who were actually running. (It should be noted that we were about 22 minutes in by now, so there were obviously people who had run it nearly down at the finish line!) Once around the corner and out of the worst of the wind, I ran. You only have to do five minutes and then you can have a minute to walk, I said. And then a wheelchair passed me, and that put the HTFU into me. And then, 6:30 after I had said that I only had to do five minutes, I passed the 3km marker (eight minute split, or about that, I wasn't really keeping decent track of it by then) and hit the downhill slope and I said, right, fuck it, you're running to the finish line. I made up a lot of time on that downhill slope. As the course flattened back out, at what I now know must have been about 350m from the finish line, a woman who had obviously finished some time ago stopped to yell encouragement at me until I sped back up, and then applauded. Runners are awesome. Less than a minute after that, a girl and I passed a couple of volunteers together and she shouted at them to ask how far we had to go. "200m," they said. "THANK GOD FOR THAT," we screamed, and took off. Sprint to the finish. And across the line. Chip time was 40:37. Honestly, on that day, on that course, with the complete lack of running I've done in the three weeks before it, I can't be disappointed with that. If you'd asked me even five months ago if I could ever complete a 5K, I'd have laughed in your face. Besides, I've got something to beat in March, now. I have no bar to measure against, but it seemed to me a good, well-organised race. The only thing I'd fault is that they might want to do better with their directions than, "Holyrood Park is within walking distance of Edinburgh City Centre." Then again, this is BUPA, the same people who do the Great North Run -- I know they do good, well-organised races, and, because I've worked the public transport phones on Great North Run day and the month leading up to it every year for the last three years, I also know that they are not brilliant at providing directions to start lines. There were plenty of volunteers to cheer us on around the route, clear markers, a staggered start, more volunteers at the end with water, a nice finishers medal and shirt (long sleeved, thick thick cotton, and honest to God the comfiest shirt I've ever slept in), and my official results were on the web by the time I got home an hour and a half later.