Strides for Mental Health 5k Race Recap

Well now that I have midterms out of the way and I’ve semi-stopped freaking out (for the moment), I can finally get around to posting my race recaps!!  By the way, you all crack me up!! lol… love your comments!!  Especially Pam’s!!  CLICK HERE to see it!  A couple of you were curious as to why I might be running alone Saturday… I may or may not still post about it later… if I don’t, I’ll email you!  OK… onwards!!

First up is my first 5k/race of the season!! :D

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Strides for Mental Health 4th Annual 5k Walk/Run
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Start Time:  8:00am

I ended up getting up later than I wanted to (surprise surprise lol) so I didn’t eat anything, didn’t drink a whole lot of water, and just grabbed the nearest running clothes, threw in my contacts, grabbed my garmin, and rushed out the door lol… yeah, I’m not a morning person remember? ;)

Insert Random AWESOME fact here: My bib was #25!!!  lol  (I’m getting married on the 25th of June)  I just thought that was fun :)

I knew that one of my friends from church was going to be running the race too and knew that he wouldn’t have anyone there either because his wife got called in to work, so when I got there around 7:50am, I started looking for him.  I found him and we lined up together towards the front of the pack… about 4 or 5 rows back from the fast people.  This wasn’t a very big race, so it wasn’t chip timed or anything.

The head honcho counted down and we were off… well my friend runs faster than me and I was running with him…  AKA:  starting out too fast!  I started worrying about it, but decided I could just slow down when I wanted to because I have not been running very much or training very hard so I knew I wasn’t going to beat any records or anything lol…

My friend and I (I’m in the BLUE)

I was feeling good so I stuck with him til right about the halfway point then told him to go on without me…  This race was all mental for me… thats what a lot of my runs have been lately… a mental war… anyways… I was going to slow down with half the race left, but I realized that my legs felt great, it was just my lungs that were sucking air and I blamed that on the cold I was trying to get over… so I just kept running trying to stay at the same pace I was running.

I’m not gonna lie… I really wanted to slow down a few times, but I started getting excited, because I wasn’t doing as bad as I thought I would with as little training as I’ve had so far this year!!  Well, I came up to the straight stretch with about 800 meters left to the finish and I looked at my Garmin and blinked a couple times and then said OUTLOUD  “Heck YES!!”  I didn’t have a whole lot in me, but I dug down deep and picked it up, not a lot, but as much as I could… and I kept thinking “this is why I practice negative splits and ending kicks during most of my runs!  I KNOW I can do this!!!”  and as I kept running that finish line kept getting closer and my time kept ticking away…

My friend had finished with enough time to walk back about 100 yards to the finish to cheer for me and it really helped me out… something about having your named yelled out by someone just breaks through those mental walls…  I gave it all I had at the end and crossed that finish line so happy with myself… so ecstatic…

I PR’d by 19 seconds!!!

AND….

I BEAT MY GOAL IN MY FIRST RACE OF THE SEASON!! I RAN A SUB 25 MINUTE 5K!!!

I was so happy!  AND surprised!!!

My official time was 24:55!!  I did it!! 

I probably would not have run that fast if I hadn’t started out with my friend… I would have just made excuse after excuse as to why I couldn’t run that fast the whole time lol.. so thanks David!! :)  Now, I have to reevaluate my goals for this year ;) lol…sub 24 it is ;)

 

Here are my garmin stats:

Stats

Official Time: 24:55
Average Pace: 8:02/mile
Overall Place: 32/183
AG (20-29) place:  7/22
     **If it would have been the regular 20-24 age group I would have placed 1st by about 1:30!!

Upcoming Races

May 7, 2011 – Capital City Half Marathon
October 16, 2011 – Columbus Marathon