First Race - 5/3 10k (Read 379 times)

So I am finally back from my first race weekend, and I have to say that I enjoyed every second of it! Again, I have to thank everyone for their advice and information on this site to help me prepare for the race experience. As the race approached last week, I felt really good in my last training runs, and set an ambitious goal (for me) to finish the 10k in 55 minutes. Although I would have been happy to just finish, and had a conservative goal of under an hour. The race morning was clear and cool, and my friends and I arrived in GR about an hour before the 10k start. We had plenty of time to look around, and take a warm up run around downtown. I was feeling good, and couldn't wait for the race to begin. As we lined up for the start, I hung near the back thinking that I would start out pretty slow and pick up the pace throughout the race. Huge adrenaline rush when the race started, but I kept my pace conservative, and hit the first mile marker at just under 10 minutes. The racers were starting to thin out and I picked up the pace a bit. I spent the race looking around, and fell into the rhythm of listening to the sound of everyone's shoes hitting the pavement. I was very conscious of trying to be in the right places, and not cut anyone off or screwing anyone else up. The miles flew by and my times improved at every mile mark. Missed the 4 mile marker, not sure if it was setup because one of the other racers mentioned it as well. At that point I had been noticing that there were a lot of racers falling off their pace, and I began to pass quite a few people, yet had plenty of energy left in the tank. At the 5 mile mark, the clock was right at 45:00 minutes and I thought that, if I kicked it up a notch, I could hit my goal of under 55 minutes. So I pushed myself hard, and powered up the last hill heading back into downtown. The last few blocks were a blur, but I could hear the crowd cheering as I focussed on the finish line. I crossed the finish line with 54-something on the display, and when the official time came out I had clocked my race at 53:36! Whewhew!! Spent the next couple of hours waiting for friends to finish their 5k and 25k races, and enjoyed watching everyone finishing their races. Kept looking around for other runners from this board, but with no success, hopefully next race! Congrats to everyone that ran!

Great race! How hooked are you now?

Awesome job. Great finish!

I appreciate all of the support! and YES I am planning more races already First up is the Race for the Cure 5k in Detroit at the end of the month (it's actually only a 3 mile course), and my big goal is to run the Detroit Half-Marathon in October. After the first race, I definitely want to find more events to participate in during the summer. Any suggestions? To sum it up, I am hooked! and if all goes well, I will be lining up for the 25k next year!!