My First 5k

{Justin, Me, Renee, and Ryan after our 5k}

Well, this weekend, I knocked another thing off my 101 in 1001 list (I am too lazy to link to it right now, but if you are so inclined, there's a link to it in the blog header)--we completed a 5k!

I did Couch to 5k several months ago, but never actually ran a 5k within the 30 minute time period. Since then, I've been running once or twice, but mostly we've just been doing Insanity. So, we agreed that we were just going to enter, Justin would help pace me, and we would just run when we could and walk when we could, not stressing too much about it because we haven't been training.

My goal was to finish in 45 minutes or less, which is probably pretty slow for some people, but I tend to jog a 13 minute mile pace (which I think is right about 40 minutes), and wanted some leeway for running outside since that's not something I do a lot. But, my secret goal that I didn't tell anyone (not even Justin) was under 40 minutes. Well, our final time was 42:11...so definitely hit the first goal, didn't hit the secret goal...but I'm not sure that I could have pushed it much more, honestly. I'm not sure what percentage running versus walking we did, but we definitely did some of each.

I know everyone talks about how awesome their first 5k was regardless of their time, but it was actually kind of frustrating for me because of my asthma. I took my inhaler before we started (I use both a fast-acting and a slow acting inhaler), and then left it in the car because I don't usually use it WHILE I'm working out. But between the fact that this is my bad allergy season, and the fact that the race was in the AM (cold air + higher pollen count in the AM = worse asthma), it was BAD. I was wheezing big time. My asthma is *STILL* really bad and painful three days later. The frustrating part for me was that there were several times when I wanted to keep running, and I knew that my body was capable of running, but I was having such a hard time getting air that I couldn't. And there wasn't a darn thing I could do about it, so I cried (which also didn't help the asthma). Justin was a trooper and a great motivator though. He was great about pointing out landmarks and saying "We'll walk there" or "We'll run once you reach that street". We finished the race running, so that was awesome. I'm really happy he was there with me.  He's seriously competitive, so I know it probably killed him not to be able to run as fast as he could, so I really appreciate that he ran with me {Love you babe!}!

We were talking about actually training and trying to better our times next year (though Renee was already sixth in our age division! Yeah Renee!)...but I'm kind of thinking about training after we finish Insanity and trying the 4th of July 5k. Next time, I think that using Justin's iPhone to show us our pace and progress would probably be helpful for me, as would listening to music while I'm running (WHY in the world didn't I?!).

Overall, it was probably a good experience, and I'm glad we did it, even though we didn't make my secret goal. I mean, I guess we could have just been sitting on the couch!