My running group Gotta Run of Katy runs sometimes at George Bush Park for our training runs. The last Sunday of every month there is a free 5K that is put on by the Houston Wellness Project. My previous PR for a 5K was 34:34 from a year ago and I really wanted to beat my time. With Saturday's PR at a 10K, I was hoping to break my 5K time also.
Alain, our coach, sent an email for all of us to be at GBP at 6:30 to get in 3 miles before the race but I of course was 5 minutes late so I didn't hear the instructions he gave us so someone in the parking lot said go about 20 miles out and them come back, so I did. I met up with our group at about 1.2 miles and was going to keep going til 1.5 miles, but Alain told me to turn around so I would be on time for the Wellness 5K.
The race started at 8 am and was a simple out and back course. There was a timer set up, but no timing chips so you had to look at the clock or have a watch on you. Since I brought my new GPS watch with me I could keep track of my pace and I new if I wanted to hit under 30 minutes (which was my goal) I needed to run in the 9:20's. For the majority of the run it was between 10:00-11:00 minute miles, but sometimes I saw 9 and 12 minute miles (one time I saw a 8:30ish mile! That didn't last long though-like a split second). At the turn around point I was really, really, really hurting and really, really, really wanted to stop and walk/rest for 'just a bit,' but I knew that if I did that I wouldn't get a PR and I would never start running again or I would do a walk/run combo for the rest. I resisted the urge to walk.
I kept looking at my watch for reassurance that I was doing great and that I would still PR. I was so happy that I brought it with me, if not I would just be running along with no idea how fast I was going, and probably never would have PR'd. When I got to the finish line a girl that was right behind me told me that she had tried to keep up with me and I thought it was so cool! I have never been someone who people try and stay with because they are trying to pace me, I have always been one of the people trying to pace off someone else!
At the end of the race they give out awards (not sure what they were) and also had a door prize drawing. I didn't win. :(
My official time was 31:55, a 2:39 minute PR! What's even cooler was that I had run over 2 miles about 30 minutes before and ran a race the day before. I wonder what my time would be if I hadn't done all that? I have been shying away from 5K's this race season because I am focusing on longer distances and it tends to leads to greater chance of injury if you work on speed and distance at the same time. Plus, after I finish a race I am done, I don't want to keep running 7 more miles when I just finished 3. No, give me a race with 10 miles and race bling, then call it a day.
Next weekend is the Monster Mash and the Houston Half Marathon! Look for recaps soon. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment