Addicted to Exercise

Well I guess every time you try something new you learn something. This was my first one-mile race, and I really did not know what to expect.

I got out there nice and early and ran for about 40 minutes nice and slow. Then I walked up Congress from the finish line up to the starting area, watching a couple of the earlier heats go by. There were a lot of runners out this morning. I think the organizers got what they wanted by having this race kick off the Distance Challenge Series. I had not tried it before because in the past only the really fast people in town came out to play.

I stretched a little bit and talked with people until it was about 20 minutes before my heat. Then, I jogged a few minutes and ran into a pack of the Gazelles who were just starting some warm-up drills. I joined in for those and concluded them with a couple quick sprints. I was feeling pretty good and ready to go at that point.

I had signed up for the 6:01 to 6:30 heat because that was a speed I knew I could run comfortably. I figured I might go a little bit faster if I felt really good. Heh. They sounded the horm to start us off, and we all took off in a hurry. There were a few people that jumped out there, and I knew they were going pretty fast. I fell in line somewhere around 15th or so and just decided to run along there.

I totally missed the 1/4 mile marker. I just never saw it. I did get quite a shock when I saw the 1/2 with the clock sitting on top of it, though. It was reading 2:40. That was just a little bit faster than I thought I would go, but I felt fine so I pressed on. Those people I was following were going a little faster than advertised, it turned out. I didn’t see the 3/4 marker either, but it didn’t matter because I could see the finish. Heh. The only reason I know those other markers were there is because I saw them when I was walking up the course to the starting area before the race!

In the last couple hundred yards I heard my friends yelling for me, and it helped me pick off a few more people before the line. (I actually didn’t really see them until afterwards because I was just focused on the finish line.) I ended up cruising in in 5:27. Not exactly world-class, but a whole lot faster than I expected I could do it. And now I know what that feels like, so I can prepare better for next time.

I grabbed some bananas, cookies, water, and Powerade, and then I got to watch the last two heats come in. All in all, that was a pretty fun morning.

This entry was posted on Monday, September 6th, 2004 at 4:14 pm and is filed under Race Reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.