First 5k! (Read 820 times)

Warning: I write long posts sometimes, plus it's Monday and my brain doesn't work well enough to do real work at work yet. I ran my first organized 5k ever this weekend - the 15th Annual Frank Kush 5k in Tempe, AZ. I've been running on and off for about three years now as a complement to cycling, and finally about two weeks ago something "clicked" and running doesn't feel weird and awkward and uncomfortable anymore. Racing isn't something that gives me too much anxiety, as I raced bikes for a bit and did a season of cyclocross, the most anaerobic ridiculous entertaining sport ever. Anyway, now that it's not 100+ degrees every day in AZ, it's race season! There is a 5k pretty much every weekend from now until April, and being on the lazier side, I chose one that took place less than a quarter mile from my house with the luxurious start time of 8:30am (what is with races that start at 7am?! Brutal!!). I woke up at 7am or so, took Ralphy-dog out for a little jaunt, then had a Clif Bar and some Midol (yeah... I wasn't feeling too great, damn ovaries), and then proceeded to look for my Garmin. I have a big, clunky 201 which takes up half of my forearm, but I love using it for pacing and since it's so big and seems to lose signal and beep all the time, I also tend to talk to it while training to ease boredom. I couldn't find it, got kind of panicked about how much a new one would cost, realized it was 7:45am, and walked over to the race site to register. Registration was easy and fast. I was planning on registering in advance online, but the site was down and I ended up forking over $5 extra on race day. After pinning my number I ran back home to use the bathroom and drink some more water and look for my Garmin more. Ran down the street back to the race (how's that for a warmup), played with a few dogs (it was a dog-allowed 5k - super cool!), and lined up. It took a while for people to get out of the way since it was a family 5k and kids were weirdly running in zig zags across the road, but I found my pace pretty easily and just plugged on to the end. During the last mile, I realized I was still breathing somewhat comfortably (something that NEVER happened in cyclocross races), so I picked up the pace a bit. As I was nearing the finish I could see the clock was just before 32min, and so I sprinted past three people to finish at 32:07. Waaay faster than any training run I've done - I am stoked. So.... signing up for a 10k next month (which starts about a tenth of a mile from my house). Running is fun! Also planning on possibly doing a duathlon, or maybe a triathlon if I figure out how swimming works. And the postnote: I was doing my laundry and my Garmin was inexplicably stuck to a bra. I am blaming my dog. He is going to run the race next year with me.

Congrats on your first 5K! Sounds like a very pleasant experience! And yeah, I'm jealous about you being so close to the start too... and how'd you swing being so close to the 10K start? Wow. Now I'm *really* jealous!

Congrats on your first 5k My first will be in December... Sistinas - I have a question for you if you'd like to email me woodlandsprite at gmail dot com