I think I might be a runner now

I ran my first official post-c25k 5k on Saturday morning. Yaaaaaaaay!!!

I enjoyed it thoroughly. My husband and I invited lots of friends to join us at the run, and since there was a 10k, a 5k, and a 1k, there was a little something for everyone. Our group had a total of 17 people running or walking – 7 of us ran the 5k, 3 of us walked the 5k, 4 of us ran the 10k, and 3 of us walked the 1k.

When it came to the seven 5k runners, I was right smack in the middle in terms of finishing times – two guys finished significantly ahead of me, two finished later, and three of us were right in the middle. I was the only female who ran the 5k – most of the women walked the 5k or 1k, although one ran the 10k (she graduated from the couch to 5k program in July of 2007).

My official chip time was 32:08 minutes. I am completely satisfied with this time. My goal was to be at or near 35 minutes; I beat my goal!

I ended up running the entire distance with my husband, which was fun – we’d planned on running separately but figured we’d start out together and separate once one person needed to slow down or speed up. But instead of separating, we stayed together the whole time. I think his ability to run faster than me was offset by the fact that I’d trained more consistently, and I'd recently done much longer training runs than he’d done.

The run felt very right to me. I feel like the couch to 5k program prepared me for the run … well, it prepared me for everything except dodging strollers and waist-high children, anyway. There were LOTS of little people who would sprint forward and then abruptly stop, and lots of folks moving not-so-quickly while pushing strollers. I don’t know if my time was hurt by the obstacle course-ness of the beginning of the race, or if I actually ran faster to get out of the first-mile chaos.

Unfortunately, my knees are a little sore. I think I upped my distance a little too quickly in the last couple weeks. I’m going to rest my joints for a day or two (maybe I’ll do the recumbent bike tonight rather than running), then get back to 30 minute runs 3 days a week.

I’ve definitely caught the running bug. Right now I’m contemplating doing a 5k a month through the summer, and then beginning to train for a 10k towards the end of the summer or in the fall. I need to figure out what 10k will be my goal race and plan around that. There’s a 10k in August, but I’m not so on board with doing a 10k in August in Texas. I’d rather do a 10k after it’s cooled off a bit.

I also need to settle on a 10k training program. I was originally leaning towards Hal Higdon’s 10k program for novices, but now I’m considering the Becoming a One Hour Runner program instead. I really like training based on time instead of distance … I think that works better for me.

It’s good that being active is the game plan – with the way I ate on Friday and all weekend I’ll need to find ways to burn calories. I had some stress eating on Friday, then on Saturday we went out for pancakes after our race, and then we went for beers. On Sunday I did fine all day, but we had Stars hockey tickets for that night and I went a little crazy on the stadium food. The scale and I … let’s just say we’re not friends this morning.

Thank goodness for Kathy’s “one perfect day” challenge … hopefully that’ll get me back on track.