Back on April 1, I posted an entry, “The Challenges of Training for a 5K.” I mentioned that I was going to run a 5K on May 15. It just so happened that my husband and I went to the St. Louis Fitness Expo later in April and met the new Chi Running instructor here in St. Louis. He scheduled an all-day workshop for May 15, so my husband and I decided to run a week later on May 22.
Well, the workshop had to be rescheduled due to storms, but I did run my first 5K race today with the St. Louis Science Center. I was going to be happy to finish under 40 minutes, although my times for training have been coming in under 34 minutes. My concern centered on the hills within Forest Park. I wasn’t sure how that was going to affect my time since most of my training had been on relatively flat ground. This past week, though, I had broken my best record twice in training with my best time at 33:10.
As I was running the race, I didn’t see the 1-mile marker, but I kept looking for it. I was amazed when I saw the 2-mile marker. For the first time, I checked my Nike+ time on my iPod, and I was slightly over 22 minutes. I was shocked. I knew I could make my best time if I kept on pace, but I had never run on this course before; therefore, I was concerned about more hills — the one thing that would really slow me down.
There was, indeed, another hill, which did slow me down further; however, I kept on running, wishing for that finish line to become visible soon. Unfortunately, I hadn’t passed the 3-mile marker yet, but I was grateful when I did. I kept thinking that I only had .1 miles to go, and I definitely could make it, although I must admit that I was tired.
As I ran to the finish line, I looked at the large digital clock to give me an approximate time for my finish. I knew I had just run the fastest time ever, even with the three or four good-sized hills.
Out of 70 in my age group, I came in 14th, with a race time of 32:34 and a 10:30 pace or 5.7 miles per hour. Unfortunately, I don’t know my overall placement based on chip time, which would be the accurate measurement to use. Unfortunately, it took me 59 seconds to reach the start line once the race started, so based on gun time, I came in 160th overall (men and women) out of 427 people. I was also 67th for all women, but again the time was based on gun time.
Now, I need to work on improving my speed because I’d like to finish in under 30 minutes. I also need to enter more races to gain more experience in different situations and to give me another goal.