My First 5K!!

I finished my first 5K today where I was running the entire way. In the past, I've completed some 5K walks, but never anything where I ran the whole way.

My #1 goal was simply to finish without having stopped. I figured to do that, I had to really concentrate on just running my own race at my own pace. I kept my focus on my breathing and my pace, and managed to do wondefully. Goal #1 achieved with no problem.

My #2 goal was to finish in less than 30 minutes. A distant hope goal was to finish in less than 29 minutes, but I didn't really think that would happen. To my surprise, I did! My unofficial time is 28:53ish. We'll see what they post on the official site later.

I was especially happy that I kept to my own pace. Since there are so many runners around, and since there's a part of my mind that always wants to be in the act of passing someone, I kept having to re-set myself to my own pace.

Once I established my pace, I did notice a couple of folks near my pace who I decided I'd set little mini-goals of beating. One was a guy in his 50s/60s who looked like he was in excellent shape. The other was a gal in her 40s who looked like she was in great shape. Both started out ahead of me.

I kept to my pace, and the first to fall behind me was the older guy. The gal stayed in front of me for about 1/3 of the race, then she seemed to tire. I passed her going my regular pace, and that seemed to give her some incentive. She stayed right behind me until about the 2 mile mark, and then she clearly decided that she was going to start kicking it up. I kept myself in check, and just kept running my pace. At about the 2-1/2 mile mark, she was lagging, so I steadily chugged on by her.

My wife, son and friend were all waiting for me at the finish line. We forgot our digital camera, but DW got some decent pics with the cell phone that we'll be downloading onto my blog at a later time.

Thanks to all the GOADs and GOTRs for their inspiration! You guys are awesome!