Monday, February 11, 2008

Second 5K

I ran the 5K again this weekend. And, I did it faster - 10:48 faster in fact! I really pushed myself. And i did think, if this is how A felt last week when I pushed her, I better apologize. :-)

I didn't start early, like I had planned. My son NEEDED me to play Monopoly with him, and make breakfast, and get him dressed and a few other things. So, I only had ~5 minutes before the race. I started with everyone else, and we went the opposite direction as last time.

All the real runners said that direction was better. Let me tell you - I liked the first direction best. This week, I had to keep crossing the road to face traffic. If I was in a pack of runners, I probably would have felt better running in the road with traffic, but I was run/walk and the pack left me far behind early. But, I think starting at the same time as everyone else did inspire me to keep running - I didn't want to hold them up.

I met another new comer to this race (her second time too). She's been running since June, when she quit smoking and joined WW and has since lost 60 pounds. She was at the finish line waiting for me and cheering me on. What a great bunch of folks.

Another woman we met last week was running this week. (Last week she was the timer.) She started running at age 39 and now 6 years later has run 37 marathons. She did say at the beginning of the race, "I don't like these distances." I'm thinkin' "I don't like these distances because they are soooo long." Of course, she meant they were too short. My sister told me that a real runner thinks of a marathon as a 5K with just a 23.1 mile warm up. That is this woman.

I am pretty sure I was dead last again - but dead last finish beats did not finish beats did not start. I feel like now I can say I have really started to train for a long run. My time was pretty good this week - now I just have to keep that pace up for another six hours and I'll be ready for a marathon.

3 comments:

Joy | Love | Chaos said...

Good stuff! Way to stick with it!

As for running direction on the road, it's actually a common law that walkers/runners who chose to go out on the road need to run towards oncoming traffic, rather than with it. Reasoning is that you'll be in a better situation to get out of a car's way if you can see them, as well as they see you! It's different, of course, for cyclist who need to ride with traffic, as well as obey the traffic laws. I find I like the running-against-traffic rule since it means I don't have to keep looking over my shoulder to make sure someone isn't going to come too close for comfort!

Anonymous said...

Congrats of this second run!!!

You are now a "real runner". Some real runners do it one way while others are different. What you choose to do IS what a runner would do!

Now you are becoming an experienced runner. Way to go.

Andria said...

I'm still waaaay impressed with this run! You are so great! And being a mom is definitely more important than getting an early start. I love you my running sis!