Lessons from a 5K

The Plan: About a month ago I ran my first 5k race, and was very frustrated afterwards. I continued training and ran another one this weekend hopping to see some improvement. Prior to the race I had intended to run the first mile in about 9 min 20 sec and then perhaps pick up my speed a little on the last half of the race.

The Setting: The race took place in the evening in the cute little town in mid-Michigan prior to their "Festival of Lights Parade." We ran a couple loops up and down main street which was all lit up with Christmas lights. In addition, it was snowing lightly. It was a beautiful setting for a run.

The Race: As the race started, lots of people began passing me. I refused to let them influence my pace and just kept telling myself to "race my own race." I've heard many runners say that they started out too fast and I wasn't going to let that happen to me. Besides, I was enjoying myself. I just kept going with my own pace. However, when we reached the mile mark a race official told us that it had taken us 11 min and 28 seconds! The woman next to me said, "Oh good I made it under 12 minutes, now I can walk!" AHHHH!!! What was I doing? I looked around and realized that everybody around me was walking! I wasn't running any faster than I could walk! I quickly decided that it was time for me to run faster! In the next two miles I ran faster, but now there were all these people in groups running ahead of me that I had to get around. I'm guessing I easily passed 100 people or so. (I finished 599 out of 780 overall, and it seemed to me that there were only 50 people or so behind me when we looped back the first time) In addition to that the snow turned to a sleet/snow mixture and the wind began driving it in my face. Between this and my slow start, there wasn't really much I could do to save my time! My goal had been to finish around 29:40, and I finished 32:25. (I ran the last race 29:59)

Lessons Learned: This was the first race that I had raced by myself. My dad had always raced with me before, and I knew that I had to run faster than him. I didn't realize it till it was too late, but I haven't run a race by myself before, and I have no idea how to pace myself! I also learned that it is possible to start a race too slow. I was so worried about starting too fast that it never occurred me to worry about not starting too slow! The good news is that I am not nearly as frustrated as I was after the last race. It was a good experience because I tried my best, and I learned a lot.