My First 5k

Dad and I

My first racing #

My dad and I both completed our first 5k yesterday morning! We decided the week of Christmas to run the Matanzas 5K in St. Augustine. I had just recently started training and thought I would be ready by today. Well, I did okay but could have used more training as this really cold weather the past month deterred me from running outdoors when it was 20 degrees plus howling winds.

We received our registration packets this morning at 8 AM and weighed in as we were both eligible for the Clydesdale division. It sounds pretty bad right? For women you just have to weigh over 150 pounds to be eligible. I only remember being less than that when I got married (then again I was exercising an hour a day 5-6 times a week, and only eating Special K twice a day and a lean cuisine for dinner). We thought we might as well try for an opportunity for a prize.

There were over 1800 people at the race that went through the heart of Historic St. Augustine. I ended about what I figured I would, which is not bad considering how my running has tapered off to be non-existent the past few weeks. I wanted to make it under 40 minutes, but ended up about 40 minutes and 15 seconds. The gun time for me was 41 minutes and 2 seconds, but I wasn't at the front, I was at the back when the gun went off. I am happy with my first results and that I only ended up walking 3 minutes total during the race.

The finish line while people were still arriving in the morning

The starting line

This is how they timed us

I thought my dad would be there waiting for me once I finished cheering me on while I crossed the finish line, he wasn't though. Funny how he is what almost 61 years old and he beat me by about 9 minutes, he runs a lot though.

He told me that the whole time he was trying to keep up with the guy that was on CRUTCHES running barefoot in front of him so he didn't have the chance to pay attention to the scenary around him. My dad wasn't able to keep up with him. After the race the barefoot guy on crutches running barefoot won 5th place in his division for his run, he was 79 years old! It makes me feel a little better that he raced the 300 meters in the olympics back in the 60's. Come on, crutches though?

the course layout

I was amazed at how many people ran barefoot or ran with these really weird shoes that I actually saw by chance in a shoe store earlier this week. They are the ones that have a rubber lining for the bottom of the foot and each toe is individually wrapped. I heard some guy say that he runs barefoot normally but wasn't sure if the road would be wet which if it was he wears those shoes so it wouldn't tear up his feet.

We stayed for the awards ceremony which took forever. Won't do that again. It became freezing cold, colder than when we were running as the wind had picked up. My mom and Omar kept calling to see where we were to know how much longer we would be. I told my dad we could go any time. Finally after they announced the male Clydesdale division winners he said we could go. I was like well we might as well wait a minute to hear the female Clydesdale division winner then, but we didn't. My dad cracks me up.

3 mile marker - only .10 of a mile left

I finished!

It was a good experience, now to really start training for my next 5k so I won't walk any of it. Any suggestions?