Bad me for not putting in that calendar....but....
I did my first 5K this morning! It was the Seattle Furry 5K that supports the Seattle animal shelter. People are encouraged to bring their dogs, and after the race there was a pet expo and pet tricks contest. I chose this one because I knew it wasn't super competative and scary--a good first timer's race.
It didn't start until 10 am, so I spent the morning puttering around the house and hitting the grocery store. Also took my dog for a walk (1.1 miles. He wasn't coming with us because he has some on-leash issues that would be a huge deal with so many other dogs and people).
We had to park about .65 miles away, but that was a nice little (downhill) warm up. We arrived around 9:30 and picked up our race numbers and goody bags, although we handed the bags right back because we didn't want to carry it around OR walk it back to the car. We just sort of hung around looking at all of the different dogs playing around.
The start was sort of confusing. Runners (aka people who elected to be timed with the chip thing) were meant to start at 10 and walkers (no chip/no timing) were going to start at 10:10. We had decided to be walkers because I didn't want to get in any runners way, and we have a garmin to time us anyway. We stood off to the side and the announced the runners to start. However, it looked like pretty much anyone could start then, as tons of people with the green (walker) numbers just went. We waited about 6 minutes before deciding to just go too, as we did not want to get stuck behind the huge throng of people coming.
The first mile was CRAZY. I had hoped to hold a 15:15 for the first mile, but knew if would be difficult because of the people, dogs, stollers etc. I pulled out my best tourist ducking moves and zig zagged around (I was really happy at this point to not have a dog!) DH said I took off like a rocket. When we finally got ahead of most the crowd, I realized we had been doing like a 13 minute pace! A little fast for me, but I felt ok. We slowed down slightly and the first mile was 13:50.
Mile 1.5-2.0 was a long slightly steep hill. I was doing ok, but certainly not going that fast
DH charged up it though. The nice part was the downhill return was a little longer, and it was a good recovery area. We actually jogged down for part of it.
Last .5 mile or so was flat again into the finish line. It was really fun to cross one, I've never done that before. There were loads of people cheerings. So fun!
My total time was 44:26, or a 14:17 pace. I usually go 3 miles during a workout, so the distance was comfortable, but that was A LOT faster then I tend to go. Like I said, I would have been pretty happy with a 15 or 15:15 mile. This was much better.
The expo was cute, but I was tired and wanted to get out of there. The walk back up to the car was KILLER! The hill was very steep, and again, about .65 miles. Even DH, who rarely complains about walking, was super bummed about it
I cannot wait to try something like this again! I esp. can't wait for the 1/2 in January. The energy of this type of event is awesome, and I can't wait to experiance it again
!! Glad it inspired you to consider your next racing endeavor.
. Glad you guys had a great time.
