Mistakes, Well You Know I've Made a Few

And now for the details of my second ever 5K, the Dadfest. Thankfully, only parts of my body that aren't required for typing are aching. I've got a huge painful knot in my left calf and have somehow strained my shoulder...probably from that section of running I did all hunched over in terrible form.

I think this 5K will go down in my history as "the one where I made some mistakes." I've learned a lot of things from this race that will probably make future races go much better. First of all, I didn't warm up. Today not warming up at all made a huge impact because about 30 seconds into the race my legs were aching and I was having trouble breathing. This totally affected my mindset and made me feel like I would never make it 3 miles. I never recovered from that awful mindset that I got right at the beginning. So, that was my second mistake. I was the queen of negative thinking today. The entire race I wanted to quit. I felt more negative during this race than I have ever felt while running in my life. My friend Karen tried so hard to snap me out of it, bless her heart, but she was in a losing battle. My third mistake was starting out too fast. I realized about a half mile into the thing that I was on about a 10:30 pace which is a full 2 minutes faster than normal for me.

I am not sure how I made myself keep going because when I say I wanted to quit, I really mean it. I did not want to run another step. And my posture said it loud and clear. Around the 2 mile point I was all hunched forward, just willing myself to try and keep going. I felt awful.

And to add insult to injury, my official time was 40:02. Yeah, I'm not sure I can even talk about that right now. I have no one to blame but myself for not finishing under 40. I should have done it, I just didn't.

The nice thing about this race was seeing my kids near the finish line cheering for me! I got to give them five as I ran past. It was so nice to have them there seeing what I was doing and encouraging me.

So, it was a difficult race for me and a good learning experience. I finished it, and I did better (be it ever so slightly) than my first 5K.

I almost forgot! Would you believe Karen and I passed that 90 year old woman in panty hose, the one from the last race, right at the beginning? But something tells me she might have still finished it ahead of me. I never saw her after that, but she probably passed me at some point in the middle when I was walking and beating myself up. I need to get her name so I can start looking up her results.