Monday, August 26, 2013

My first 5k!

Well, I  (sorta) did it. I ran in my first 5k this weekend.
The Sioux Falls Glow Run.
I asked an old friend, and experienced runner, to run it with me, and he graciously stayed by me the whole way. Thanks Schwenk!  I had fun. I think he did too, in spite of everything.

It was disappointing in some ways. I didn't get to really test myself for the 5k distance. The organization was too poor, and there were multiple choke points during the run that we had to slow to a walk to squeeze through. It took us 42 minutes to get back to the finish line, and I had only trained for a time of 26 minutes.  So, the last 5 or 10 minutes I was just tired, and had to do some walking to give my legs a rest.
I didn't have a bit of trouble with my asthma though, and I'm not terribly sore today, so I think if I do another one, I'll be pretty close to running the full thing. It would be nice to run another one just to try again at running the full thing.

Have I mentioned I may have become a runner? I have never liked it. Ever. I was one of those students in high school that intentionally scheduled enough AP courses that I could opt out of PE and the running that would entail. "I'll run when someone is chasing me," was a favorite line. So, I've never ever gotten this far before. And training the last couple of weeks was ... dare I say it.. fun. Every run, it seems like, something hurts. Something is tired, or crampy or sore, and I have to get past it. And every time I do, I feel great. 0-5 minutes, always feels disjointed, ungraceful. 5-10 minutes is when I usually have to let go of whatever is paining me, run through it, but I'm starting to feel warmed up and not so disjointed.. And then there's this time period from like 20-26 minutes where it just feels great. I have my pace, I have my breath rhythm, and I'm just running, and I've never experienced that before. It's peaceful in some ways and cleansing in some ways, and triumphant because I've overcome my lazy inclinations, my little pains and I know I've done good for my body. 

I thought running would be more similar to my biking, in that I would just feel like I had a good workout.  But it's more than that, and that's been a nice surprise.

So, I'm going to keep at it, at least for now. Will I buy expensive shoes? Go without shoes? Try for something longer? I don't know. Maybe not.. but I'm not ruling anything out at this point. 

Thanks to everyone for the support. 

Official run time: 41:32   (lol, and by official, I mean that's what my watch said, as this run had no tracked time keeping.)
- Jennie

2 comments:

scerwin said...

Hi Jennie,

I'm glad you are enjoying the running. I still miss it sometimes. There's something just viscerally satisfying about using your body for something that nature designed it to do.

If you have flat feet, the barefoot running probably won't work for you. Not many people have feet that can take that kind of pounding for long. Even with good shoes I had to stay off pavement. Good luck with it, I hope you have a good long running career.

Jon Lorisen said...

Congratulations! Great accomplishment. Marathon next? :)