QuarterLife Girl Gets Fit!

I did it!! On Thursday I ran my first 5k race EVER!

I woke up bright and early, ate a banana and buttered toast, and headed out to the park where it was being held. My first impression: Oh my, so much traffic! I should’ve headed out earlier….I didn’t know this was such a big thing!! So yes, apparently the Thanksgiving day 5k is pretty big, and it took me a good 10 minutes to get down the block and into the parking lot. Once I got in there was another HUGE line for Race-day Packet Pickup (I forgot about picking it up at the designated location, and the night before when I remembered I was too lazy to go). Luckily they were taking care of the lines fairly quickly and I got my package with enough time to spare before the start.

When it was time to start lining up we made our way to the start where I headed to the very back of the line, I was aiming for a 15 minute mile pace (my average was closer to 15.5). As I waited I looked around…there were a lot of families (parents with strollers and young kids), groups of friends running together, people of all ages. It was pretty cool. I felt a little better, because while waiting to pick up my package all I could see were sleek runners everywhere!! There were others like me! lol.

I’ll skip the boring play-by-play recap, but I just wanted to say I was really excited most of the time!! For a non-runner like me it was a cool experience. I thought it was really sweet when I passed by one of the water stations and there was a 9 year old kid cheering us on. It made me smile. I was very impressed when I noticed an old lady power walking that was more or less keeping up with my pace for nearly a mile (dang, I was really running that slow, wasn’t I? lol. I’d rather think she was a very fast-walking old lady. Hehe). I was in awe watching the winners pass us (awesome form, and very jealous of the abs on most of them).

So in the end I made it in 44:12. Several minutes faster than I was hoping for! (I was hoping to make it under 48 minutes since I haven’t worked out in so long!) My time might be slightly off, because at the beginning it was several seconds before my timer started (I kept pressing the wrong button), and at the end I forgot to stop it for a few seconds. I think that makes it more or less even. lol. The biggest disappointments though….my time wasn’t recorded in the results (chip errors, I guess?), and there was only one photographer taking pictures in the end….and I was blocked!! I can see my shoe in one of the pictures, lol. (I wasn’t going to buy them anyway.)

So I’ll call this experience a success. I didn’t run the whole time (not even half, really), but I finished it. And I’m happy with my time. I finally did something I’ve been wanting to for years, and better yet….I’m looking forward to my next one! I’ve decided on a particular race in March, and as soon as registration opens I’m all over it. We’ll see how I’m doing with my running by the beginning of January….they give medals to the first 2,000 finishers and I’d love to be one of them!