I apologize for not posting this yesterday, but it was a crazy day. My parents ended up coming to visit to watch me run, so I spent the day with them. I know you are all wanting an update, so here it is. I finished the complete race without walking, I did not however make my goal of 35 minutes. I ended up finishing in 38:17. I was extremely dissapointed at first, so much so that I could not even be proud of myself for running the entire thing. I crossed the finish line and immediately burst into tears. I am sure that my husband and my parents thought I was having a mental breakdown, because it was not pretty. It was such an emotional day for me anyway because when I first started my blog my original goal was to complete a 5K without walking in under 40 minutes. I had done that, and I was emotional because of that. Then I had put this added pressure of completing the race in under 35 minutes, and when I was unable to reach that goal I felt like a huge failure. I felt like everyone would be dissapointed in me, but I was very wrong. My family was so proud of me for even attempting the race. They were even more proud to know that I did it without walking. Slowly throughout the day I was able to process more and more, and I eventually came around to feeling proud of myself. When I first started this journey I was unable to start with couch to 5K because even the first day included running for 60 seconds at a time. I had to start with my own intervals, so I began with running sections of 30 seconds at a time. When I ran for those 30 second sections, I felt like I was going to die. I went from barely being able to run 30 seconds, to being able to run 38 minutes without stopping. I'd say that is something to be proud of!
With that being said, looking back there are a couple of things that I would have changed on race day. 1.) I would not have started out so fast. There were so many people, and at first I was so concerned when people were passing me that I was running at a much faster pace than I am used to. This caused me to pretty much run out of steam by mile one. I never walked, but my pace had majorly slowed at that point. For my next race I will definitely pace myself better. 2.) I would not have gotten water from the water station. I only reached for water once and I immediately regretted it. I tried to gulp the water while I was running and I ended up getting choked. I coughed for a good minute after taking that gulp of water. On top of that, the water was very cold and that was a shock to my system. Between the choking, and the cold it really threw off my breathing for a while, and I ended up getting a side stitch shortly after. I blame this comepletely on my decision to get water. 3.) I would have kept walking for a bit after I finished the race. I was in such an emotional tizzy that I just sat down and cried. I should have kept moving and I should have stretched afterwards because I am VERY sore today. I never get sore after runs, and now I know that this is due to the five minute cool down.
Now that I have done what I set out to do and I have run a 5K without walking, I am going to do my next 5K a little differently. I have gotten a better time than 38:17 when I was running intervals before, and I know that is because the running sections are full force because your body has had time to recover in between. I assumed that I would beat everyone who was running intervals because they were stopping to walk. I was very wrong, almost every person that I saw running intervals beat me. They weren't so spent that they had nothing left. They ran fast on their running sections, and they walked very briskly on their walking sections. I am doing the Susan Komen 5K on October 26 and I think that I am going to run that one in intervals. Running 3 minutes and walking 1 minute. I have proven to myself that I can do it without walking, so now my sole concern is improving my time even if I do it by running intervals.
I really apprecite you coming back to check on my progress. You were all on my mind while I was running yesterday. I hope to be able to post a better time with each race that I do. Below are some pictures from race day. The first is a before race and after race picture and the second is my bib number. Thank you again for always coming back, your support means the world to me.
Thanks for reading,
Sarah
No comments:
Post a Comment