the dew baby

In honor of Sean's 5th birthday, I decided to run 5 kilometers yesterday. Well, it wasn't really in honor of Sean's birthday, but that sounded good, didn't it? Haha!

Weather was gorgeous! High 50's-low 60's, sunny, no humidity.... and the course was flat, flat, flat. I don't think the conditions could've been better, especially for a newbie like me!

My goal was to run the whole thing without walking. And somewhere inside, I knew I wanted to beat my previous time (36 minutes, 4 seconds), even though I tried to mentally prepare myself to not beat my time. 

Unfortunately, I did not accomplish either. I ran the first two miles, even passing by the water station, but somewhere near the beginning of the 3rd mile, I had to walk. I needed some recovery... I was swelling horribly and my legs were like jello. So I walked for maybe 60 seconds at the most (I barely got through a song intro on my MP3 player), then went back to a run. Or at least a quick shuffle. I definitely walked significantly less for this race than I did for my first one though!!

My cheering squad! I loved, loved, loved the sign!!!

Passing my family running toward the turnaround point.

Passing my family running back from the turnaround point (I'd gone over 2 miles at this point). It looks like I'm walking here -- both of my feet are on the ground -- but I swear I'm jogging! Haha!

When all was said & done, my "official" recorded time was 37:26.1. I put the quotes around "official" because this race wasn't chip-timed. So this is just a manual time recorded by volunteers, and I started at the back of the pack of runners, so I didn't cross the starting line right when the gun went off. I think my real time was probably several seconds less, but I still don't think I beat my August race.

I'm trying not to be disappointed about the time, but I can't figure out how I went slower this time, even though I walked a lot more last time (and the last race had some brutal hills that this race didn't have, too!!).

But.

On the upside.... see those people behind me in the third picture? I DIDN'T FINISH LAST!! Someone somewhere went slower than me!! In fact, 56 someones went slower than me.

I was 199th out of 255 runners. And I was 14th out of 15 in my age group. I wasn't last! So YAY!!!

I'm signed up for another 5K on October 27th (this is a costume 5K! I can't wait!), but I'm seriously contemplating doing one in between. I'm really enjoying seeing exactly what I'm capable of...