Yay! This is the first time I've felt like I earned a dancing carrot, so here it is:
!
A big NSV for me today, I completed my very first 5k today as part of the Cherry Blossom run in DC. Originally I had signed up to do 10 miles, but going from inactive to 10 miles was way too ambitious for how long I had to train. I think because I had wanted to do so much more, I went into it feeling like it wasn't going to be a big accomplishment -- but boy! There were plenty of people who had clearly balked at the prospect of running 10 miles (I had switched a long time ago, so I had the 5k white tag, but there were others wearing the colored 10 mile tags running in the 5k). After that, I didn't feel like a quitter anymore, and I started getting pumped for the race. If any of you all enjoy jogging but usually go on your own or on a treadmill, you may want to try doing a big event sometime, it's really different to be running along in a big mass of people. I definitely would have started walking if I hadn't seen other people stick with it. And it was a great motivating tool along the way, cause I had a specific event to prepare for.
Anyway, it was really fun despite being rainy and gray and a more challenging run than I expected, and I'm looking forward to getting my very modest times. It's really great to go from not being able to do the mile jogs in middle school to crossing the 3-mile finish line! Plus everyone was so friendly and supportive. My only gripe is that the t-shirts everyone got say 10 miles whether you did the 10 miles or the 5k -- I'd much rather show off what I actually did haha. But perhaps next year or so I'll have gotten to that point and I can earn it retrospectively. =)
I didn't do the couch to 5k plan specifically, but I based my workouts on the same idea (jog a bit, slow and recover a bit, repeat).
My first 5k!
