TGIF!

Ok, I say that, but really, I haven’t done much this past week. I’m kinda digging this whole break thing. 😉 But TGIF for those of you who have had a full work or school week!

So for this week’s Fitness Friday, I wanted to recap my first 5K!

One of the biggest (actually, it is the biggest) running events in West Michigan is the 5/3 River Bank Run. There are many different races within the event, including the 5K run, 5K walk, junior events, a 10K, and the largest 25K road race in the country. This past year there were 21,000 people participating, and about 5,200 in the 5K run alone!

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If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you’ll know that one of my biggest fitness goals for the longest time was to run a 5K. And I mean run it. I’d been “training” for about three years, and had gone through many different injuries during that time. Actually, had it not been for those injuries, I probably would have run this a few years ago. Anyway, when I started running, the most I could run at a time before getting tired was eight minutes. I slowly worked my way up to about 30 minutes, but it was all on a treadmill, and in my experience, running outside/on solid ground is much different from treadmill running. So I was really anxious/excited to try this out!

The day before the race, my dad and I went to the DeVos Place in downtown Grand Rapids to pick up my packet and walk around the expo a bit. From all of the runner blogs that I read, I had expected a good experience at the expo, but it was better than I thought. There was such a great atmosphere there, and I loved being surrounded by healthy, motivated, upbeat people. Gazelle Sports is a big company in our area, and they took up most of the expo, selling every sort of running equipment you could imagine. I thought about checking out their running shoes, as I knew they’d be marked down in price, but decided not to because a) I don’t have the money, and b) I have a relatively new pair anyway. 😉

We left the expo and met up with my two aunts and grandma at a restaurant. My Aunt Christy was going to be running the race too, so she stayed the night with us.

We woke up dark, cold, and early at 6:00. Seriously. It was so freaking cold that day. The warmest it got was 50*, and that was right in the morning – as the races went on, it got colder and colder, and cloudier. I think it even rained during the later races! I certainly was bundled up.

Before we left my house, I had made the mistake of drinking over 16 oz. of water. It’s so important to stay hydrated, and that was my line of thinking, but in retrospect, I probably should have had a quarter or half of that. So when we got downtown, my aunt and I stopped into a hotel so I could go to the bathroom before running. Oops. Oh well, there’s only one way to learn those sorts of things. 😉

Due to the amount of people there, we were one of the last sets to go. I started to get excited the closer we got to the start.

Despite my excitement, because I hadn’t ever run a 5K off a treadmill, I was a bit worried that I wouldn’t be able to run the whole thing. But I knew that thinking like that wouldn’t do me any good, so once I started, I pushed play on my iPod, and began jogging at an easy pace.

I was very pleasantly surprised with the spectators. Even though it was freezing, there were lots of people around, cheering everyone on, and that was so much fun. I was so surprised when I saw the first mile mark, and I felt great. I wasn’t having any asthma problems (oh, the woes of a person with allergies) and my legs felt strong.

Between the first and second miles, we passed over the Grand River twice, which was nice for a change of scenery. The picture below was taken a few weeks ago when it was flooded like crazy, but it’s basically the same view we had while running.

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I felt pretty good when I saw the 2 mile mark, but unfortunately it preceded probably the biggest hill in Michigan (ok, maybe not the biggest, but it was pretty darn steep). I was able to run up half of the hill, but I could feel myself straining and decided to walk up the second half. I’ve noticed in running that if I push myself too hard, I start to feel like I’m going to be sick and need to stop. I didn’t want that to happen, so I walked for a minute and a half and then picked up running again.

The second mile flew by just like the first one had. I really couldn’t believe how strong I felt. I actually didn’t see the 3 mile marker, and once I entered back into town, the spectators started getting more populated and louder, and when I rounded a corner, I saw the finish line. I was feeling really good, so I decided to sprint what I figure was the last 1/10th of a mile. If my physical therapist was reading this, I don’t know how happy she’d be to know I had sprinted (we determined that was what was hurting my knees/IT bands), but I have to say, it felt so good. I zoomed past everyone else and crossed the finish line feeling strong.

The 32:46 time that I got was a personal record (duh 😉 ), and I’m totally proud of it. I never signed up for this race to get a good time – I simply wanted to be able to do it, and I did. I only walked a minute and half of it, and I felt strong throughout it all. It was such a good experience, and I’m still so happy that I finally did it.

So there’s the recap of my first 5K. Thanks for reading!

What has been your biggest fitness accomplishment?

Have you ever run a race/would you ever want to?

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!!