My first PR!

5K - 31:39 PR  (5/8/10 - Journey's)

I am so proud of my first PR (Personal Record)!  I placed 8th out of 18 in my division; and 123nd out of 243 overall.  My pace was 10:13/mile.  Not too shabby since I have only started running since last November.

I had so much fun despite the three inches of snow that fell the night before.  Check out the snow in our "before race" picture.  The temperatures were in the 30s and the wind was blowing hard.  Fortunately, our course had tall evergreens on each side of the road that blocked the wind.  The scenery was fantastic.  The evergreens were heavy with snow so much that the boughs were in trouble of breaking.  The sun came out during the race which made the snow glisten.

My brother-in-law and my sister drove over eight hours to race with me.  They are the two shorter ones in the picture of us before the race.  My brother-in-law raced in the 5K with me and did very well considering how little he trained.  My sister ran the half marathon and finished in 2:08!  I am so proud of them both.  I am so thankful that they were with me to share in this adventure.

I paced myself well the first mile.  My body was still warming up.  I should have done more warm up before the race.  By mile two, I was in gear.  At mile three, I turned it all on and went as fast as my legs could go.  Looking back, I think I could have started a bit faster.  I was being conservative because I didn't want to burn out in the last mile; which many did and it felt great passing them all.  My goal for my next race is to try to pass some of these eight year olds!

Next race is a trail race; Saturday, June 5, 2010.  I still haven't decided if I'm going to run a 5K, 12K, or 10 miles.  My sister challenged me to run a half marathon this year, so I'm working out my training schedule to prepare for it.