Starting 5K Time

Yesterday morning I recorded my "beginning" 5K time for September.  I woke up not feeling at all good.  My tummy was very off.  I had a fairly tight schedule for the morning, but managed to switch a few things around and was able to delay my run by an hour.  Luckily by then I felt much better.

It was a beautiful crisp morning.  As much as I HATE/despise/loathe/detest the thought of summer coming to an end, running is the absolute best on a morning like this.  When the air is damp, there is a slight dew on the ground, and you start off with just the slightest of chills.  A thing of beauty!

I decided for these timed runs that there would be no watch stopping.  This would be a race situation.  If I need to stop or walk, the clock will keep ticking.  I also was approaching this as a race situation.  There would be no wiggle room left so that I could allow for improvement at the end of the month.  I was going all out with a best effort.  If I can't improve by the end of the month then I can't improve, but I didn't want to fool myself into thinking there was improvement, so it was all or nothing.

Gotta say ... I kinda shocked myself.  It was an INCREDIBLE run.  I have not had a run like this in quite some time.

My initial time for the Cardio Challenge 

for 5K was 26:32 - 8:34 pace

I have not hit that pace over ANY distance yet this year.  In fact, I have not hit better than that pace on a straight through run (i.e. no watch stopping) since October last year.

I am SOOOO happy!

Of course this will make it a little harder to get the amount of improvement I set out.  I had wanted to improve this time by 1 minute by the end of the month.  That would put me at 25:32.  My PR over this distance is 24:53.  Can't say I have a ton of confidence, but I'm going to give it my all and try.  When I decided upon that 1 minute improvement goal I figured it would take me somewhere between 28-29 minutes.  I figured my "improved" time would be 27 or better.  So yeah, I'm a little shocked, but very, VERY happy!

This weekend I'll be setting my 10K time.

I want to send out best wishes to my blogging buddy MARCELLE who is running her VERY first half marathon this weekend, and I believe just her 2nd race ever.  AWESOME!  She is going to smoke it and I'm so proud of her.  Good luck Marcelle!

Heidi

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