First 5k: Hearty Hustle

So, today, in backward fashion, I ran my first ever "official" 5k.  I ran a virtual one while in GA over the Easter weekend, but today was the first one I have ever ran with real other runners.  I was stoked.  It was slightly uneventful as I was running by myself.  I did find a friendly face that I chatted with before the race, she was wearing a "Running for Max" shirt, which hit me in a whole different place.  Max is the sweet 2 year old son of a good friend from high school.  He passed in a car accident last February.  He was near the same age as my oldest and it hit me like a ton of bricks to see that.  But we turned the mood to happy as we talked of her newest bundle of joy who is about 3 months old now.

I am not sure if it was that experience, hormones, or what that made me all emotional, but I found myself tearing up a little during the race; seeing hefty firefighters clapping us on, kids holding signs saying "go mom" (not even mine) and I just got a little misty.

I have no experience with running with people, passing people or knowing how to set my pace with other people around.  I didn't use my gps, which would have kept me aware of where I was, but I just really enjoyed the experience.  I tried to explain this to my husband, as I have never ran during our almost 10 year marriage.  I just rediscovered it last summer and fell in love with running.  At mile 1.5 I just escape.  That first one is always rough....but then I hit my groove.  This was true of today, that first mile felt like forever.

But, it is done.  I finished with an "official" time of 31:00 and had a 9:59 pace, which confirms my thought that it really did say 30:59 when I crossed the line.  Anyway you look at it, it was my first, which makes it a PR and especially if you count my virtual 5k, in which my time was 31:43.  I was middle of my age group, so not the fastest, but plenty of room to improve.