Sunday 6 November 2016

My first 5km 'race'

Months ago I would have scoffed at the idea of entering a 5km event, when this distance was pretty much an 'everyday, easy' distance.  However, months off from running certainly gives you a bit of perspective, and I was excited to enter the 5km portion of the Feilding marathon event this past weekend.  

My friend Sonia was running her 7th half marathon there so it was a good excuse to catch up with her and support her too!

Me and Sonia a little while before she started her race

I'd only just gotten up to the 5 kilometre distance, so the plan was to just have fun and finish with a smile.  I was wary of starting out too fast and possibly injuring myself, so I had a pacing plan for the day:  Start off at 6 min for the first kilometre, then try and run each subsequent kilometre 10 seconds faster.

It was a pretty small field for the 5km.  The gun went off, and so did all the wee kids and teenagers.  I settled into a nice rhythm near the rear, across the grass (about 100m) then up the short sharp hill for the first long straight.  It was a fairly mean headwind, with a little drizzle, but altogether not too bad.  A couple of road crossings, a few sweeping corners with nasty camber, then I was at the turn around point already!  

The second half was awesome, with a net downhill (gradual) and tailwind.  I started picking off runners as I went, which is always fun.  Just another reason to plan negative splits for a 'race'!  I had the watch set to show 'average pace' as a feedback to see how I was going. It was dropping gradually as I ran which was encouraging.

Finishing on the grass was hard work but I tried to put a bit of a sprint on to finish strong.  28:11 on my watch and I was thrilled.  Faster than I was expecting and a new record for Terry's watch:

Hubby's watch is awesome! He hasn't been able to use it yet, so I have the records on it!

I connected the watch data to my phone to look at my splits, and was extremely happy to see that I'd achieved what I'd set out to do:

Nailed it!



A quick drink and photo at the finish, then it was time to go and meet my family at McDonalds for a coffee and something to eat.  Hubby and the big boys went off to the Steam Rail open day, and I took Mr 2 back to the park to watch Sonia finish her race.  So proud to see her finish strong, 7 half marathons is pretty amazing!

All in all, it was a great day out, and I was on a bit of a high for the rest of the day afterwards.  Can't wait to work torwards the next event, probably a 10km.

So excited to be back!




1 comment:

  1. Awesome post! And it meant the world to me to have people there supporting me and cheering me on at the end. You should be so proud of your achievement!! You smashed 5k!!

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