After seeing people post about running races, I decided I needed to get back into the game and start training. I was a little late to start training for the 10K, but decided to do it anyway. I didn't worry about training to be fast, I just wanted to finish in the time limit. So I registered for the 10K - my first official race!!!
After talking to a mom whose son plays baseball and runs track with Brad, we decided to enter the boys too. And they had strict instruction from all parents to take it slow and go at a conversation pace. But I think we all knew that was a shot in the dark and that their competitive drive would kick in.
Here we are BEFORE the race.
Brad's other track buddy brought them all headbands. It's for a running team he's in.
Here are Brad and Ethan "jogging" - NOT! They did really well and got good times.
Brad finished 11th in his age group and 268th overall. (There were 1471 total runners.) His time was 49:06, which is a 7:54 pace. His friend Ethan finished a few seconds before.
I started at the very back. I knew I had a slower pace and figured I could always move up through the race. I had 1 earbud in and just went to my own groove. After we hit mile marker 2, I felt good and was enjoying my time. That was when I realized why people love to run races. There are tons of people around, both runners and spectators. I was amazed at how many people come out just to cheer on the runners! I didn't think much about myself because I was watching others. It made it a little easier to run.
For the first 1/2 I just ran by myself. I was ahead of my training pace too, by 30 seconds. I kept doing a mental check of my body and breathing to be sure I wasn't going too fast. At one point on the course you have runners still running out, and on the other side of the street were those that were bringing it in to the finish. A gal next to me said, "Don't look over there! We can do this!" That was the beginning of our race friendship! It was both of our first race. Her pace was awesome (a minute faster than my training pace) and she helped to motivate me for the last leg. She's in the picture with me below. Funny that her name is Kim. I made me think of my Kim and that if she still lived here that we might be able to still run together.
Us after the race!
So here's my stats:
I finished 74th in my age group and 1084th overall. I finished in 1.06:09. That's a 10:30 pace!!!!! My goal going into it all was to finish before 90 minutes because that was the limit. I exceeded that and hope to improve from here on out.
1 comment:
You guys did AWESOME!
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