The Cowtown 5k

Five weeks ago I began the Ease into 5k program. It's a training program to get a non-runner to a level where they can run for 30 minutes at a time, each week adding more running and less walking time. I'm only around halfway through the program, but since Nick's company had some people who signed up to do the Cowtown 5k today, I went ahead and signed up too so I could see what happened. I ran my normal training schedule today and then once that finished I just winged it until I crossed the finish line. I was very excited about today, because I've never ran a 5k before. I've participating in several 5k walks for the Susan G. Komen Foundation, but it was always with a group of ladies from church and we yakked the whole time and it always took us around an hour and fifteen minutes to complete. I never even considered trying to run any.

So this morning we arrived and somehow managed to find four or five people from Anchor waiting around to start, which is quite an accomplishment since I heard the announcer say that 6000 runners were participating today. That's a whole lot of people. When the race started, I began my program on my phone and set off. The first five minutes is a warm-up walk, and I was quite thankful since the first mile of the course was uphill. It's quite a different experience running with other people as opposed to all alone. Just dodging the slow people ahead of you and trying not to get run over as someone is trying to run past you is quite interesting, and it didn't really start to thin out until about halfway through.

I finished my sets of runs (at the current week I'm running 4 minutes, walking 2, running 6 minutes, walking 3, running 4 minutes and then walking 2) and during the five minute cool down after the last walk I was headed downhill so I took advantage of the terrain and ran that entire five minutes. At this point I was about 7/10 of a mile out so I walked and ran intermittently. I didn't want to burn out by the end because my only goal was to be running when I crossed the finish line, and I was! In fact when I turned the corner and saw the finish line I took off with some sort of energy from deep within and was actually running pretty fast for me.

I did it! It was a really great feeling and I couldn't have been more happy with myself. My official chip time was 46:34 with a 15:00 minute mile average. Nick ran the entire race and finished at 34:57 with an 11:15 minute mile average. He wasn't really sure he would do very well because he hasn't had much time for running lately, but I knew he was just stubborn enough to make it.