On June 5th, all of the C25K training I have been doing came to a head and I put on some really uncomfortably short shorts to head out for my first 5K in about 10 years. I went back to look through my old Tumblr blog, and wished I had more detailed entries about events like this. In my first 5K, I only had a few sentences, which is nuts, because there was a whole lot more happening in my head than I wanted to write about. Ten years later, I am not in so much of a different position, although I am. I tried to treat this day just like any other training day despite it being something very important to me, which explains the excessive amounts of photos and documenting.
Packet Pick-Up
My oldest went with me to the packet pick-up on the day before the 5K. This entire process is new to her, and I wanted her to be a part of it. She was really impressed, though she has no basis of comparison. I told her about some of the larger races we have done in the past, such as the half/full where there is an entire expo before the race. Not to minimize this at all, as it was still a blast.
We headed over to Khols and grabbed our bibs and shirts for the entire fam. I had the opportunity to talk with some of the event organizers who also run the FEAT organization. It was a great chat, followed by my oldest and I enjoying some Kona Ice in the parking lot.
Picking up the shirts and bibs brought back so many memories for me. I wish I had kept a better log of all the runs I had done in the past. I wish I had done better and writing down more of my thoughts surrounding each one. I was too worried about what people would read at the time.
Night Before
On Friday morning, I followed my normal lifting routine. I also tossed on my weighted vest and went for a walk after. No need to change anything up just because the 5K was the day after. I learned that the hard way in the past. I focused far too much on a 30-minute activity. I wanted this to be just another training day. Leading up to this, I have had so many days where I went to lift, walked, then did the C25K program, and even did some cycling after. Lifting and walking would not throw me off at all.
What I did think would throw me off would be the donuts we got that night. I have heard so many good things about Duck Donuts and hate that they are as close to my house as they are. I have been doing good with my nutrition, especially considering I am not tracking macros, following WW, etc. I am doing it on my own.
But again, I did not want to make the 5K out to be something it was not. At the end of the day, it was just another day of exercise. Of course, I say that now as I am writing a diatribe about it. I am not going to publicly admit how many donuts I had but it was enough to carb load our entire family.
Race Day
Race day. All the feels. Especially when we got out to the event itself.
It was a mixture of nostalgia, new feelings, and a calmness that I was not used to having on race day. The very first 5K that I ran back in 2011 in Hampton, GA (With a time of 38:08) came to mind immediately. Despite that run being so long ago, certain moments were just engrained in my head.
I told my girls how I judged people at the event and how that burned me big time. For example, I remember wanting to run the race without stopping and I did not want to be last. I remember seeing another runner who I thought was bigger than me. I hate to admit it, but I felt a sigh of relief because I thought I had found someone who I would be able to beat, which meant I would not be last. Naturally, this guy smoked me. Not only did he run faster, but he seemed to speed up to the point where he was out of sight. I learned the hard way not to judge anyone at a race. I told my girls to always cheer for everyone there because you never know what they went through to wake up that morning and go out to the race.
All of this came rushing to the forefront of my mind as we walked from our car to the start line.
Just being out and about with this many people, in the sunshine, felt amazing. With COVID, it has felt like we have all been locked up for entirely too long. The emotions were running high, and I stood at the start line and the number of people started to increase.
Race
The run itself was not very eventful for me. It was more of keeping a steady pace and running the race that I had trained to run. Having run so many races like this, I knew better than to let faster runners get the best of me. True to form, I saw so many people bolt out of the gate, only to pass them up a mile down the road.
I did not train nearly as many hills as I should have, evident in the fact that the bridge toward the beginning and at the end nearly wiped me out. At the end, it was rough. I kept to the plan and slowed my pace a bit as I did not want to walk. I also knew that the finish line was right around the corner.
There were races in the past where I would look for certain people and slowly pick them off. I do not recall doing that this time. I felt more like I had blinders on, just cruising along at my own pace. I would occasionally look down at my watch only to see what my pace was. I knew I wanted to be around 10:40 so if I was faster than that, I slowed down so I would not burn myself out.
At one point, I noticed a lady running who kept a rather good pace ahead of me. I thought at first about bolting past her but knew that would backfire, so I just stuck to my plan. She stayed ahead of me the entire time, but not entirely out of reach either. After the final trek over the bridge, I saw the finish line and she was closer to me than had been the entire race. I never want to finish a race without sprinting, so I kicked and went as hard as I could. I fully expected her to do the same, but she did not, most likely sticking to whatever plan she had in place.
My mouth was super dry the entire time, something that has not ever happened. I am guessing it was the BCAAs that I mixed with my water before the race. I did not consider this only because it is something that I have done before. I knew better than to change anything on race day. I skipped the first three opportunities for water but on the final one, I grabbed a small bottle. Sure, wish it had been offered in the small Gatorade cups because unscrewing the top was a pain while I was focused on not dying. Since we were at the Parklands, I did not want to just toss the bottle on the ground, so I held on to it until I got to the end of the race.
Results
My Garmin had me at 32:37 and the official race time had me at 33:05 which means I am taking my Garmin time since it was faster. Ha! I knew the Race Predictor on my watch was off!
It did not bother me, but when I looked at the awards for my age group, I really should have had 3rd place because my time was faster. I have never paid attention to the difference between the watch time and race time.
It does not matter at all.
I did what I set out to do and that was run a 5K without stopping. Something I have not done in about 10 years (This is the plan I followed). I looked through my old Tumblr blog and running records, and aside from one run where I went sub-30, I cannot find anything that I did faster than this. That sub-30 run was in Florida and was a short course by 1/10th a mile. Knowing all of that makes me want to try again, but this time do it faster.
Girls
Aside from me running without collapsing, my girls blew me away.
The night before, they started kicking around the idea of running the race instead of walking it. Since they have not run that distance, I did not want them to try it and end up logging too many miles at once without preparing their bodies for it. I suggested a run/walk approach and that is what they did.
When the race started, I was shocked at how fast they bolted out. They were quick! They looked back at me, and I just smiled, all of us embarking on our own race. As they slowed down to move into their first walk, I kept trucking. We talked about everything before, so we felt comfortable going our own ways if we had to. After I got to the end, I hung around the finish line cheering others on. I got a text from Lauren saying that they were almost at the finish line. When I saw them round the last corner, I got so excited. I wanted so badly to yell out to them and make them sprint as hard as they could. Turns out, I did not have to. As they got close enough, they decided to sprint.
They both had a great time and enjoyed the event far more than I had expected. They both talked about finding more 5Ks to do and wanted to be able to run them the entire way and a lot faster. I am certainly not going to hold them back.
What’s Next
It was difficult not to immediately entertain the idea of a 10K or even a half-marathon. Back when I first started running, that was the natural progression for me. I would run an event and start thinking about the next obstacle to conquer. I am going to take it easy this time and not rush it.
I would like to run a sub-30 5K and if that were to happen, I would need to start focusing on speed work. I would want to drop some more weight as well. I talked about running a 5K in my weighted vest and if I did that, I would want to do it in the same time that I did this event. Right now, I just want to get back to riding the bike, lifting weight, and hitting some of the Peloton run/walk classes to keep logging miles on my shoes.