Star Shaped

Hey, so I ran a 5k this morning and PRed by about 5 minutes. No big deal.

Today’s 5k, the Children’s Museum of New Hampshire 5k, is the first race I’ve run since last December’s Hot Chocolate Run. It’s funny thinking about how far I’ve come in my running in just 6 months! Back then, I could run maybe 1 mile without stopping to walk, and now, I can run almost 5! Honestly, a 5k today sounded like a piece of cake compared to the runs I’ve been doing with my 10k training group.

I woke up at around 6:30 this morning. Of course I felt nervous. I always get pre-race jitters, mainly because I have to use the restroom 2452432423 times before a race and I’m worried that having to go during the race will throw me off! Either way, I woke up nice and early to eat my breakfast, two slices of toast with dark chocolate peanut butter on top, and a banana on the side.

It took me no time at all to get dressed for the race – I wore my new Mizuno Wave Rider 16s (LOVE these shoes) and my new Spibelt to hold my phone, id, and keys. Of course, I wore clothes too, but my clothing’s pretty boring. Just your standard technical tee and capris.

At 8:00am, I arrived. I wasn’t sure where I’d park when I drove to the town the race was held, but loads of clearly marked ‘event parking’ signs led the way. Being so early, I scored a nice spot. Of course, people thought I was crazy for arriving so early, but eh. I’d rather be prepared.

On my walk to the race, a woman asked me for directions to the 5k, so we talked while I showed her the way. This was her first 5k and she seemed pretty excited! I told her I was in her place a year ago when I ran my first 5k. I love talking to new people at races, especially people who are new to running like me!

I picked up my bib at the registration booth – I was number 333! I also received my free t-shirt. I debated keeping it with me while I ran, but I ended up walking back to my car and putting it in there just in case I didn’t run into anyone I knew who could hold it for me. (Ted is in California for the weekend, visiting his mother, so he obviously couldn’t come to watch me run.)

Let me tell you how much I love my Spibelt. I bought it last week and used it for my training run on Thursday to make sure it’d work for my race today, and it exceeded my expectations. I kept on forgetting I was wearing it! It didn’t bounce around AT ALL and it kept all my necessities close to me. Love. Best purchase I’ve made in awhile.

Also, let me tell you about the crazy bathroom situation. At around 8:30, I stood in line to use the restrooms one last time before the race started. Yeah, I waited in that line for about 20 minutes before I reached the bathroom! The line was unreal. I worried I wouldn’t make it in time for the start, but I finished at around 8:53 and hurried back outside to find my running partner to line up for the race. Whew.

This is the smallest race in which I’ve participated. I could clearly see the front of the pack from our spot in the back, and it only took us about a minute to reach the start after the race started. On a sad note, when the gun went off to start the race, a person next to me didn’t realize that the gunshot signaled the start of the race and thought something went wrong. It’s sad that the events from the Boston Marathon last month have affected people’s thoughts of safety at races.

So, the race! My friend and I devised a plan – start slow, end fast. We stuck with our plan and finished the first mile in a little over 10 minutes. Adrenaline started pushing us harder during the relatively flat second mile. And the third? Well, let’s just say all the hard uphill runs were matched by really, really awesome downhill runs.

I started really feeling the run toward the 2.6 – 2.7 mile mark. We were running a pace about a minute faster than our pace during the first mile, so I wasn’t sure how much more I had left in me! Right around mile 2.7 we encountered a HUGE hill, and THAT tired me out, but we still maintained our pace. I’m not sure how we did that.

After mile 3 I really, really wanted the race to end. I couldn’t believe the pace I was running, and I was afraid of getting sick if I pushed myself any further. We maintained our pace all the way to the end, with my friend reassuring me that we were close to the finish line. I’m sad that I did’t finish stronger, but I felt pretty strong for most of the race, so that counts, right?

Final stats:

Place: 546/1092
Division: 77/209 (30-39 age group)
Time: 30:39
Pace: 9:52

I am SO CLOSE to a sub-30 minute 5k. So close I can taste it.

Here’s the most amazing part of the run – my splits.

Um, I went from a 10:22 mile to an 8:59 mile. I haven’t run a mile THAT fast since middle school. Wow.

I’m proud of my work today. I still can’t believe I can run a full 5k. I can’t believe I can run almost 5 miles, honestly! I never, ever thought I’d be able to run at all because I’ve never been athletic. I’m proud of myself and excited to continue to improve!

Have you exceeded your expectations recently?

I've been on social media for a long time. As someone who spent many hours of her college life carefully crafting blog posts and designing new layouts in Photoshop 5, I'm an early adopter of most things Internet.

When Facebook hit my college campus in 2004, I signed up with my still active .edu email address. I played with it a bit at the end of 2004, wondering why everyone kept on talking about 'the facebook' as if it were some sort of new thing. I figured it was just another Friendster or tribe.net or something of the sort. I didn't get it.

Nearly ten years later, I still didn't get it. What value is given on a website filled with useless games and static about me info? Sure, status updates exist, but what happened to the content? What happened to long, thought out blog posts and commentary, and why were they replaced with drive by likes and superficial comments?

So, I quit Facebook.

I don’t want to keep track of my friends through a website on the intertubes. I want to keep track of my friends by seeing them, in person, or sending them thoughtful emails if we don’t live close to each other any longer. I don’t want to like a person’s post or picture or wish them a quick ‘happy birthday’ instead of telling them in a more personal manner. I want to change the way I interact with my friends, and to do this, I left Facebook.

Have you ever ‘quit’ any sort of social media? If so, why?

Yeah, I know, it’s been a few weeks since I’ve last posted anything here. I’ve barely even been on my computer these days, which hinders the blog writing process. I am hoping to get back on track with this whole blogging thing, but I’ve been so sadly inconsistent with it the past few years. I’m trying, however.

On to this week’s confessions!

I’ve had a bad week. I don’t want to get into it, and it’s part of the reason why I haven’t been writing, but this week’s been pretty rough. I’m confident things will get better, but for now, I’m trying to focus on the positive.

Oh, WordPress, I can’t quit you. Another reason for my blogging absence? I spent the last couple weekends moving this site back from Drupal to WordPress. Yes, I know, just a month ago I was singing Drupal’s praises. I still love Drupal, but I realized WordPress made blogging much easier. I missed WordPress Jetpack stats, the ability to use nifty iPad apps to write blog posts (Blogsy, I’m looking at you!), and super easy theming. Seriously, it took me maybe a couple hours two weekends ago to WordPress-ize my theme. Of course, I still have things to tweak, but eh. I’ll get to it.

I feel weird when I don’t include pictures with every blog post. I get all scared that people will click on the link to this entry, say to themselves “Oh, no pictures? See you later!” and close the tab. The thing is, I never do that! I like pictures in posts, but it’s not a necessity for me. Maybe I’m too old school, but I love reading long blog posts, with or without pictures. I’m not sure why I’m so hard on myself.

I quit Facebook. More on this one later in the week, but suffice to say, my account is on its way to being deleted. Just another week and a half and it’s completely gone.

Do you have any confessions to share?