Monday, March 15, 2010

St. Patty's Day 5K last Saturday!


Pictured above: the running crew! From left to right: Jessie, me, Tia, Kaia, and Christine.

These last couple weeks have been...well...busy. Extraordinarily busy. I've not kept up with my workouts or eating like I should. To make matters worse, I've been coming down with a bit of a cold.

Even still, I had a 5K to run last Saturday. The St. Patty's Day 5K dash in Tacoma. It was 10 years ago I did my first race - the St. Patty's Day 5k dash in Seattle. It seemed fitting to be doing a similar race to kick off a new era of running.

The course was mostly flat, with a couple small hills - one right at the start, the other (of course) just before the finish. I couldn't find my watch the morning of the race, so I had to just push myself hard and hope I'd end up with a decent time.

I did pretty well keeping the same pace throughout the race, and was able to really sprint through the finish line. Overall, I felt I'd done a pretty good job.

My results? 30:47 - a pace of 9:56! I have NEVER completed a race with a pace under 10:00 - this is a first for me! In addition, I finished #43 of 128 for my division. Another first - I've never finished within the top half for my division! I'm so proud to see how far I've come in these past few months - from being in the worst shape of my life to hitting some new PRs.

It was also a special day because I was able to run with four special ladies (pictured above) - and none of them had ever done a fun run like this (though two of them had done cross country in the past). One of the gals, Kaia, actually placed #3 for her age group - not bad for her first 5K, huh?

So where do I go from here? The time has come to up my distance and prepare for marathon season. I officially registered last night for Portland on 10-10-10, so I'm committed to doing this thing!

No comments: