Last week I just finished my first race a 5km event called the City2Sea. I felt so happy and pumped to cross the finish line as this was a big achievement for me which I had trained for almost 3 months for.
It all started with me getting a Fitbit and aiming to get 10,000 steps a day walking, where previously I’d only been averaging 3 – 4,000 a day. I began walking during my lunch breaks at work and also sometimes in the morning before work, so I increased my steps to where I started to get 10,000 steps a day consistently.
After a few months of walking, I then decided to give it a go and started jogging with a friend from work. Jogging with someone else made a huge difference, as I feel that it’s much harder to start out and keep motivated when you’re trying to run by yourself.
The first time I went and jogged 5km, I was exhausted and my legs, arms and torso were aching. Afterwards I couldn’t walk properly for about 3 days without pain or aches. My body was in total shock from not doing anything like this for a long time. What I should have done was started with a shorter jog and worked my way up instead of just going straight to 5km. But after recovering from the first run, we would then jog 5 – 6km usually twice a week and over time I improved and my body didn’t get that sore anymore.
I felt that the best way to keep the running up was for me to have a goal or purpose, otherwise I was just running for the sake of it. Someone at work had mentioned the City2Sea race, and that overall it was a great event to run in. So I decided to sign up for the 5km race and I had about a month left to train and get ready.
Between that time and the race I trained harder than I had before, filled with motivation to succeed and run a really good first race. I trained running 5km on courses that had steep hills, even though the race didn’t have any hills to make sure that I would be prepared and so the distance wouldn’t be a big deal.
The race
On the morning of the race I was excited and confident. I’d put in the practice and run that distance many times so I felt that I would do very well. I had a plan to go out pretty easy for the first 1.5km to warm up. Then I would pick up the pace. From about 3.5km I would then increase my pace again to my race pace and aim to finish strongly.
When I got to the race I warmed up and joined the pack, I was a bit late starting probably only 10 minutes before the start so I was quite far back. After the gun sounded and the race began, I jogged past endless waves of people who were walking or going quite slow. Every 1km there were groups of people dancing to music and cheering and the race was really cheerful and upbeat. I was smiling and felt happy and relaxed through the first 4km.
The last 1km of the race was really tough, I was running at my full race pace and I could feel my stomach and chest hurting, but I kept going as I really wanted to do my best on my first race. I crossed the line in 27 minutes 11 seconds which was my personal best so far for the 5km. I felt great I’d trained and prepared for the event and made a plan and executed it well.
When I checked my heart rate it had been at peak for most of the race at about 180BPM. This was interesting as I didn’t feel it was beating that fast until towards the end of the race.
Now that I have run the 5km, I’m aiming to continue and run a 10km or 15 km event next year. BRING IT ON!