For My Tummy: Running Success

Monday, May 21, 2012

Running Success

I ran a race today at the zoo here in St. Louis. I was running with a friend who has a pace time of about 9:45/mile. That's SUCH a stretch for me! I ran my first 5K last summer and my time was 41 minutes. But I know my pacing has come down - I ran 13:40/mile at Disney and I've been running AND spinning since then!

So this AM I thought "I'm going to do it, I'm going to run it in less than 30 minutes!" I didn't want to let Sara down or hold her back, so I just told myself to suck it up, it's GOING to end (in 30 minutes!) and get it done.

Sara and I ran the first half mile at an 8:45 mile pace!! Oops, talk about gunning it out of the gate! :-) I had RunKeeper coaching on keeping me at 9:45 mile pace and we were under it CONSISTENTLY the whole race. As we were rounding the last .1 miles, RunKeeper told me we were pacing at 9:32, well under what I anticipated!

As we crossed the finish line, the clocks said 31:34 but I knew we didn't cross the start line as the time was started, so I wasn't worried. RunKeeper had us running 3.31 miles in 31:31 minutes (we were ON with the 1's and 3's today!). HOWEVER, the "official" time for the race shows us as 31:05, missing my 30min 5K PR.

In talking to a friend, though, he said it sounds like the race course was a little bit longer than what they measured out. He did some math and figured out that the extra .2 miles would add 1:55 - putting us UNDER 30 minutes for our time. I'm choosing to believe that (he's a very seasoned runner!) and say I FINALLY HAVE A PR!! :-) A REAL PR, not just a PR because I've never done it before :-)

I've had overkill on sugar today (2 bananas, lots of watermelon and I won't mention the coke or brownie I had today - apparently trying to shock the heck out of my body!) so tomorrow I will probably hurt. But it's ok.

After my 5K, we went to have breakfast, then came back to the race route because my "baby" (ok ok she's almost 4 years old) ran HER first race! She ran in a kid's fun run (1/4 mile) and we had such a blast. She giggled the whole freaking time :-)