In June, I ran my first ever 5 km 'race'. I often run 5 km from home, and have run several trail races, but never just a straight
5 km road race, until this one.
Earlier this year I tried out a 5km training programme I found free on the internet. I stuck to the programme and did timed runs just from my house at the beginning and end. So I had my 'fastest time' to beat of 24 mins and 17 seconds. Of course that was running 5 km on paths, roads, crossing roads, up and down slight inclines and measured with my husbands Garmin watch. So I was interested to see what my time would be on just a straight forward flat 5 km run.
My husband offered his Garmin watch for the run, but I don't usually run with it and so decided not to. I didn't want to be checking my pace all the time on the watch. I run 5 km quite often at home, so thought it best to just go with the pace I know from that.
The run today was a 'fun run' with hundreds of competitors; so I made sure of getting as close to the front as I could for the start.
Before the start of the race, a friend told me to focus on a runner in front of me and try to stick with them. I did this with several different people who I then passed! By around the 3 km mark I found someone to focus on that I didn't catch, but found it did help me to keep going to try to keep up with them.
I was hoping to get under 24 mins for the run, and was watching my watch now and again to see where I was with that. Close to the end I knew I'd done it, but within sight of the line I saw the big clock showing it was still on 22 minutes, so despite thinking I was by then running as fast as I could, I managed a final sprint across the line to break the 23 min mark!
I'm so happy with my time - 22 mins 54 seconds. Faster than I thought I would go - and a huge lift and motivation for me in my running. I'll definitely be doing more 5km races and will be back for this particular one again next year.
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