Hello, friends! I hope you’ve all had a great weekend. Mine was definitely a crazy, busy one, and I am hoping I will be able to tell you more about all that has been going on very soon. Just be patient with me, okay? 🙂

For now you’ll have to content yourselves with a race report! One of my goals for March was to run one race, and the race I ended up selecting benefited the local Kiwanis Center for Childhood Development and took place on Saturday, March 27. It also worked out well with my half marathon schedule, as this past week was a recovery week for me. I didn’t give the race too much thought, honestly, because I was focused on training for the half, and I regularly run a 5k distance (3.1 miles) twice a week, so I knew I could do it. I secretly hoped that I would be able to get a personal record (PR), but I was afraid to think too much about it since my 2nd 5k time ended up being worse than my first.

I was pretty calm the day of the race, and got there with just enough time to get my t-shirt and stand around and do a quick little warm-up jog. I don’t know how many runners there were, but there were over 100 for sure. It may have been the biggest race I’ve been in (and I know that even still it was small compared to other races people do).

This race, I tried to focus on starting slowly so I could have negative split times, so I just let a bunch of runners run right past me and attempted to find my sweet spot. I ended up running mostly by myself the whole time, as there were a lot of runners in front of me and some behind, but not many right with me. I find that so odd, but I guess I just have a weird pace or something. 🙂

I reached mile 1 at 10:45, which I was very happy about since I was wanting to average an 11 minute mile pace for the whole race. The course was very pleasant–through an older part of Jackson, in an historic area, and though there were hills, they were manageable, and I did my best. I reached mile 2 at 21:51 (an 11:06 mile), and though it was slower, I still felt good about my pace. I was determined to finish strong and even though there were a couple of times during the last mile that I wanted to walk, I kept telling myself, “Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop!” and it worked. I didn’t stop. I don’t know if I just missed the mile 3 marker or if there wasn’t one, but I never saw it. But since the course was out-and-back, I knew I was getting closer, and then I rounded the corner and saw the time clock and started sprinting. I was SO happy when I saw my final time.

Finish time: 33:12–a new PR! My previous PR was my first 5k time of 34:19, so I beat it by over a minute. I was so thrilled! Even though I didn’t place or anything, I felt so proud of myself and excited about what I’d accomplished. I never thought I’d even run ONE 5k, much less 3! After my half on April 17, I am going to run a 10k in May and then who knows? Maybe I’ll try getting a new 5k PR. I love races!