My first 5k

I ran in my first 5k this weekend, and it was challenging but also a lot of fun. I had started couch to 5k almost 8 weeks before and was itching to enter a race. The weather was a colder than I'd been training in, so I had to wear gloves because my fingers are stupid and get cold way too easily.

Here's me at the start just before the race:


I started out at the front of the corral, because I didn't want to get stuck behind anyone and was willing to go fast at the start. For the first 1/8th of a mile or so there were only 5 or 6 people ahead of me. I knew there were people who would be finishing in like 17-18 minutes, my best in training (and on an indoor track) was 27 minutes, so I slowed down and watched some of the fast people pass me.

Thanks to adrenaline, I still ended up finishing my first mile in 7:02, which is faster than I had even ran "just a mile" in training so I knew I was still going too fast to keep it up. I slowed down a bit more. I finished my second mile 8:30 later, which was more reasonable. I didn't find a 3 mile marker but I ended up finishing in 23:48, which was a lot faster than I'd expected!

At the finish line they gave out medals for finishing the race. This was pretty cool! We hung out and watched a bunch of the half-marathon people finish, and then watched the awards. I ended up getting 2nd place in my age group (40-44) and was only 3/100ths of a second behind the 1st place guy. They gave me a medal for that too! Sweet!



So anyway, I know a lot of people would let something like that go to their head, but winning two medals in one day hasn't changed me at all. I'm still the same guy I was before, and still do the same things I did before:









I can't wait to do another race!