My First 10K!

Three and a half years ago, I ran my very first 5K. On Thanksgiving, I ran my first 10K!

I ran it with my honey and a friend. My primary goal, like most of my runs, was to finish without passing out or throwing up. I also wanted to finish it at an 11-minute mile pace.

My honey was thrilled before the race. Obviously.

Not only did I fulfill those three goals, my official time was 1:04:25! Well under a 10:30 minute mile pace!

My FitBit app was a little more generous. I trust the official time.

It was a nice, mostly flat course and a good mix of street and trail. There were lots of volunteers who smiled, cheered, kept the route clear of cars, and provided high fives. While it was pretty cold out (40º F), I think it was a bit warmer than last year when we did the 5K. I was finally nice and warmed up by 1.5 miles or so in. Also about 2 miles in, I had to do my first bit of walking, because of a side stitch. (Boo!) Happy that it passed quickly and the only other time I did some walking was at the second water stop... and just so I could drink water before picking up my speed again. The 5K and 10K folks all started off together, and at a certain point, we diverged. I felt a great deal of pride veering off towards the 10K part for the first time. I have worked hard for this and I'm glad that I challenged myself to go beyond my 5K comfort zone. Overall, I really enjoyed the run and felt great afterward. I certainly intend to continue this turkey day tradition.

After the 10K, I enjoyed stuffing my face at our family friends' house. YUM.

When I first started running 5Ks a few people commented, "pretty soon you'll be running half marathons!" I told them to slow their roll. I told them to let me get some 5Ks under my belt. Now that I've got a dozen 5Ks and one 10K checked off my list, I finally see a half marathon on the horizon.

I am registered to run my second 10K in February... and my first half marathon in May! I mapped out my training on the calendar, and realized that I can do accelerated versions of the Couch-to-5K and 5K-to-10K training apps and then work my way through a half marathon app. (I liked Active's apps for 5K/10K, so I opted for their 13.one app.)

Stay tuned for more on my running and racing adventures!