Run fun

As I mentioned last week, I had my first official race earlier this evening. It was just a 3K walk/run, or about 1.8 miles, but I thought that was going to be a good starting point for me, then I plan to aim for a 5K in August.

My realistic goals for the race were:

1. To finish.
2. To not injure myself.
3. To run the whole time and not have to stop or walk at any point.
4. To finish in 20 minutes or less.

We had a PERFECT day for the race; sunny, mid-70s, and no humidity. Perfect. It was a small group of runners (about 10 or 15 of us), then there were about 10 people walking the route.

I met the first goal of finishing the race. I finished last of the running group, but I could tell most of the other people were serious runners, so I wasn’t too discouraged. I wasn’t competing against them, just myself.

My second goal was met, as I didn’t injure myself. In fact, so far I’m not even sore. (It helps that I’ve been training for this for a while.)

My third goal was a little harder to achieve, especially since the last third of the race was uphill, but I managed to run the entire distance. It was a definite challenge, but I did it.

The last goal turned out really cool. I wanted to finish in 20 minutes or less, but keep in mind that I’ve never officially timed any of my runs. I was just estimating something that I thought was reasonable. Know what my final time was? 19 minutes and 59 seconds. I kid you not! When I rounded the corner and saw the clock said I had 10 seconds until I hit 20 minutes, I kicked it into high gear and made it to the finish just one second ahead of my goal.

I’m definitely proud of myself for achieving this goal, and I look forward to working hard in order to complete the 5K run in August.