anyway, yesterday I ran my first race. I've been signed up since February and the day finally came. I thought I was pretty calm about it and relaxed, but as soon as they sounded the horn to start the race, my heart just started pounding and I was wondering why in gods green earth did I decide to do this, lol. I definitely could've done without that adrenaline.
before I started the race, I had a time in mind that I wanted to make, 1 hour. really, I just wanted to be able to finish the damn thing, but I really wanted to do it in an hour. nothing like a little competition for myself from myself : P
once I finally got myself calmed down from the adrenaline rush, I felt good. a little warm since I had decided last minute to wear an extra layer I didn't really need, but good. I made it probably 2k before needing to walk. I had a really hard time controlling my breathing. normally its my legs that want to quit, not my lungs. I walked more than I wanted to and got passed by a lot of ppl, but was able to pass at least one person so that definitely made me feel good. the whole race was fairly level ground, not huge long uphills, manageable ones that I was somewhat able to do with just a little bit of extra effort. I didn't have any type of timing device on me so that I wasn't beating myself up for not keeping the pace I wanted to or knowing how much of the race I had left to run. the only way of knowing how much I had left was knowing the water stations were at the 2.5k, 5k and 7.5k marks, lol. in the last km of the race there's this pretty big uphill (and that's where I saw an opportunity to pass someone) that I had to walk, but I didn't slow down. I just kept my legs moving determined to not peter out. at the top of the hill was the last water station and the downhill to the finish started there as well. I went all out at the start of that downhill. I felt I could do it and just keep running all the way to the finish because I knew I was almost done. I ended up walking just a bit on that downhill, but as soon as I could see the finish, I started running again. seeing the time clock read 1:00:00 as I was nearing gave me that last push to finish hard. I did it. I did it in an hour. it was a few seconds more than an hour exactly, but not a minute more. I couldn't believe I did it. I finished and I finished in the time I set out for myself. I was a bit shocked that I actually was able to do it.
.jpg) |
| my first race bib and finishing medal (which is also a bottle opener, lol) |
ETA: official time of 1:00:22 and I beat 9 ppl out of 67... so I came in 57th place, haha! i'll take it!!! : D
No comments:
Post a Comment