My First 5k!

Lately I've been making threatening noises about developing my 'running' technique (usually I just walk pretty fast!) since my cycling seems to be coming along ok and we all know the best I can hope for with the swimming is to flounder a bit more briskly.

So I was at my desk, actually working (really!), late last week when one of the angels reached out to invite me to a 5k on Saturday morning in Vincennes. Since that would trump weeding in the front yard (which has been dreadfully neglected due to time devoted to tri-training activities), of course I said YES!

At the crack of dawn Saturday (why oh why can't Vincennes be on our time like Evansville is?), 4 of us loaded up and headed out. Turns out it was the watermelon fest down at the riverfront - really cool shirt and they were giving away free watermelons too!

Beautiful morning with a nice size group - we saw several folks from Olney there as well as quite a few of the TRYathlon ladies - either as participants or event volunteers. There may have been a few more participants than expected, as there was no sound system for everyone to hear the starting instructions, so while we caught something about 'straight through to the finish line' none of the 4 of us realized that what was said was after you cross the last street (where everyone is standing and cheering) you need to keep going about 100 feet to the chute (ooops!). Turns out all 4 of us missed it and wandered around with our water taking in the sights before kind hearted souls took pitty on us and steered us to the actual finish line. I'm certain that made a tremendous impact on our times!

I was last in my first solo 5k with a time of 47:57, roughly 16 minutes/mile, but my splits were better for mile 3 than mile 2 and better for mile 2 than mile 1 for the simple reason that as the pack got further and further away and I was who knows where in a strange city, I figured there was no one around to see me so I jogged one block (to say I 'ran' would be way too generous!) and then briskly walked two blocks, and repeated. It wasn't half bad! And certainly beat weeding! Who knew!