First 5k race

I was undecided about doing the race today as my knee is only just feeling okay now and I hadn't run for a week but then I thought why not go for it, I could always walk round!

I got a bit of a surprise when I found that there were only about 6 people there not with running clubs, everyone looked very professional and it was very quickly apparent that I was going to be one of the last to finish. Also I did think it was a bit mean of the organisers to bring the 5k and 10k runners together for a stretch - the 10k runners were flying past me and they'd already run 8km! Lots of them were lovely and shouted out encouragement to us slowcoaches though.

So I ran and walked whenever the knee started to complain and I got all the way round, I wasn't too impressed with a time of 39 minutes 40 seconds but as my mum pointed out, that's a lot faster than I could have managed it back in February when I started C25K. My knee seems to be ok too, which is good seeing as I have the 5k race for life to look forward to in 2 weeks!

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3 Replies

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  • Well done! I think it is far to easy for us to get hung up on times and compare ourselves to people who have been running for ages and lose sight of how amazing it is that we manage to complete a 5k race at all bearing in mind where we were 4-5 months ago. I have to keep reminding myself if this too! Good luck for race for life!

  • Thank you for your post and congrats on sticking with it and sounds like it was a tad intimidating at times. V. Useful prep for me as I limber up ( mentally) for my first park run. On your time looks pretty good to me.

  • WEll done! You did it!! I hope your knee is ok now. Get into the habit of stretching after runs and maybe using some ice over the knee just in case

    I wouldn't worry about what others are doing in races. It's what you're doing that counts. There will always be faster runners but that's not the point. The point is that we're running and keeping fit. Races would be a lot less interesting if there were only elite runners turning out. Most of them drop out anyway unless they feel they can win. Could you imagine that as a spectator sport. It's us slower runners and fun runners that make a race what it is. Yay, big up to us!

    Good luck with your training for your next race. Go steady!

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