First 10K Run

Yesterday I completed my first 10k run. Now usually on Labor Day, I'll sleep in and do nothing more than read a book or catch up on some of my favorite shows. It has always been a day I do nothing if possible. However, yesterday morning I was up my 5:00 am (my usual workday wake-up time) and out of the house by 6:15 to drive to the race. I'd run my first 5k back in July and started training not long after for my first 10k (6.2 miles) run. Until yesterday, I'd never run more than 5 miles at one time. Now, I'm still running intervals, so I don't actually run the entire time, but still 6.2 miles seemed like a long distance to me. Luckily, I have friends who have totally gotten behind me and my running/jogging, and my friend Fran also got up early to run. Something about having someone in the race with you, even if you don't run the entire race together, just keeps me going. I finished my 10k in 1 hour and 18 minutes. No, I'll not set any speed records with that pace. However, I'm very pleased with my results. At the 5k mark, I was running about 2 minutes faster than I did in July and at the 5 mile mark, I was already 5 minutes faster than what I ran it in last weekend.

Up next I'll start half marathon training. I'm training with 3 of my friends for a half marathon in December. Now, at this point I haven't actually registered for the race. Still trying to decide if I'll run in Memphis or just use this training to get into really good shape before training to run the half marathon in Nashville in April. I would love to say I ran 2 half marathons before I turned 40 (next October), and could still pull it off even if I don't run in December. Will see how the first few long runs go and then decide.