First 5k complete

Yesterday was my first 5k.  My goals were pretty basic, run the whole thing and finish in 35 minutes or less.  I knew I could run for the total time on my normal route.  The 5k route had a longer extended incline though so I wasn't sure how it would hit me, even after the run I did Thursday morning. 

Start of the race was congested.  They separated out the timed and untimed runners, but they didn't corral people based on finish time or anything like that.  I got stuck behind several people who were running a much slower pace than I wanted to.  Was even harder to get around them because of the faster runners stuck behind me moving their way up.  I finally got to the outside and found a group moving about my speed. 

About 3/4 of a mile in, I had the feeling I was moving a little faster than my normal pace, which is to be expected with the adrenaline.  However, I chose to slow down a bit because I knew I had the climb still to come and didn't want to burn out my legs and end up walking.  There was a cop stationed at the end of the first mile calling time.  I hit the line right at 9 minutes.  I made myself slow down a little more to be on the safe side since I assumed my initial pace was about 8.5 minutes which is a lot faster than I normally run. 

A lot of people started walking during that second mile, especially once the incline started.  I kept chugging along and passed quite a few people who had burned out on the first mile.  The hill wasn't particularly steep, but it was bad enough that I was glad I'd slowed down.  I hit mile 2 at 19 something.  Three things went through my head at that point.  First I knew that based on the previous year people had already finished.  Second I could probably walk the last mile and still beat my goal time.  Third was that if I could just hold my current pace, I'd beat 30 minutes.  I used that to motivate me to keep running. 

I don't really remember much about mile 3.  There was some more uphill and then a blessed downhill for about half a mile.  I didn't take as much advantage of that downhill as well as I should have especially with the end of race climb coming.  Again, I was more worried about getting to the end and losing steam.  I hit 3 miles and they yelled out 29 something.  I sped up, but not quite enough.  I hit the line at 30:07 clock time which translated to 30:03 line to line based on the timing thing on my shoe.  That translates to 9:42 per mile.  I was 111/252 and 16th in my age group.  The top two finishers were also in my age group.  If I'd kicked a little harder in the end, I might have been 14th. 

All in all, I feel like I did really well.  I was significantly faster than my normal speed when I run at home.  I know now that I can maintain a faster pace for 30 minutes without burning out.  I also know that I can run 3.1 miles on Thursday and again on Saturday.  Tomorrow I start Week 9 of Cto5K and Week 1 of One Hour Runner.  I decided to follow the OHR program at least through Week 7's 45 minute run.  At that point I'll decide if I should focus on getting 5 miles in 45 minutes or continue to the end of OHR.  But that decision is almost 2 months away.