First race NSV - thanks, C25K and MFPals

katrwal

Ran in my first 5K on Saturday (Run for the Hills in Farmington Hills) - started C25K in June on a lark, and decided to sign up for this race when I finished the training program at the beginning of the month.

There were around 700 runners, and I was totally intimidated (there were a lot of people there who were obviously really good/experienced at this!) - but everyone I talked to was very nice and supportive.

I've been running every other day, and had done a practice run of the course the Saturday before (more hills than I'm used to, and I wanted to make sure I wouldn't wipe out and hurt anyone) - I finished my practice run in about 30 minutes, so that was my goal.

There was an actual gun for the start - which, even though I knew they were using it, made me jump. I was in the middle of the pack (following some advice from all the runners on this board - THANK YOU to all of you!), and was excited to pass a few people as everyone started to spread out.

The run actually felt pretty good - there was a lot of encouragement all along the route - including people in the neighborhood who camped out on their driveways to cheer everyone on. I had no idea how motivating that would be!

Long story short - ended up 124 overall, 4 in my age group (35-39) - 26:55. 3rd place (last medal) was 26:39 - as soon as I saw that, I started thinking about how I need to learn to sprint at the end! :grumble: - still, pretty decent for my first race.

It was so much fun, I signed up for 2 more... guess I need to relabel myself now: wife, mom, professional, bookworm, runner... :drinker:

BetterMike

Awesome job! You have some natural athletic ability to go from couch to 5k in 2 months and run that time. You should keep it up and see how low you can go. I'm betting you can shave a couple minutes off by Oct.

Well done.