Race Journal

I ran my first 5-mile race today. Also, the photos from the 2^nd 5K finally got posted today. So, in this post, I am going to talk about today's race and I will include photos from two weeks ago.

I figure that I will start with the oldest stuff first.

Here are the official results from the two 5K races that I competed in on July 12 and July 26. The card number is either my overall place or a close approximation.

GENDER

NAME

AGE GROUP

AGE

CARD NUMBER

TIME

AGE GROUP PLACE

5K TIME

5K PACE

M

Maunderer

30 - 34

30

44

00:21:53

9

0:21:53

0:07:03

M

Maunderer

31 - 34

30

35

0:21:08

13

0:21:08

0:06:48

And here are the photos from the second 5K:

1. This is me at the start. Click on the photo for a larger version. I am near the center of this photo.
   

   
   

2. This is me at the end. I am the one with no shirt on. Personally, I think this photo flatters me.
   

   
   

3. Sorry about the gratuitous exhibitionism here. I know that I might be the only one who can tell by looking but I have lost a lot of mass in my back, arms, and chest. That is what running does. Your body decides it doesn't want to carry extra weight during this sort of long distance activity and so it starts working on shedding non-running muscle. It will be hard to prevent this type of atrophy altogether, but in the fall I will be in a weight-lifting class twice a week and running pretty much all the other days.
   

   
   

   
   

Okay – TODAY'S RACE: It was my first 5-mile race of all time. I (unofficially) finished in 36:22 which is 7:16/mile. I am happy with that time. I felt good. I ran 6:39 in my first mile but I ran a very conservative race. I just didn't know what to expect. By the fifth mile, I had worked all my kinks out and my stomach and lungs were fine (which might mean that I need to speed things up a bit) and I was able to speed up my pace a bit. I think that my last mile was probably my second best mile this morning. That is fine – it means that I can speed up.

Honestly, it wasn't really that easy but I think that it helped a lot to do those to longer runs last week. I just need more experience to get the leg strength and mental strength that I need to speed up some more.

I will put today's photos up as soon as they are available online.

me