1 down, 29 to go

First thing checked off my 30 while 30 list!

Newtown 5k official time: 29:51. 8/20 age group, 161/243 females, 509/670 overall.

Is it just me, or do those stats mean this race has a pretty fast crowd??? :) Actually, I know it does, because a lot of the local cross country teams use it as a pre-season race. There were 96 people in the male 15-18 age group alone, and the slowest one was 22:53. This race is pretty much always led by a pack of shirtless teenage boys.

That also means I shaved 9 minutes off my 2009 Newtown 5k time, and over 4 off my 2010 time. And of course, I got my sub-30.

I ran it a wee bit conservatively, I think. I lost a calf sleeve before my 15 mile run last weekend, and so my good leg went naked. Consequentially, all this past week my good leg has become my bad leg. I took an extra rest day, which I think I needed mentally as well. While a birthday run sounded great, a birthday extra hour of sleep followed by a nap after work was more beneficial.

The sleeve has since magically resurfaced in the washer.

Anyway, this race was NOT worth hurting myself; plus, it was still a bit warm for my taste. I also still am uncomfortably unaware of what my pace is/should be at various distances right now, so I really didn't have much of a pacing strategy. That was only the second running race I've done in 2011 - crazy, huh?? Of course, I couldn't run for a while, then I couldn't run fast, then I didn't want to do a race until I knew I'd worked back up to some semblance of my old speed. So all things considered, I'm pretty stoked for that race to be my first sub-30.

That's a little frustrating, though. Before the injury, I could pace myself so that my splits were within seconds of each other for 5k, 10k and 10 mile distances. I could pretty much tell you what my pace was at any point without looking. I still haven't gotten that back. So I'm waaay more likely to burn out too fast. I suppose I'll have to be patient with myself on that one. The heat and hills have made my pace so erratic anyway.

Naw, I'm mostly just stoked about my time. I really am. It's just a TINY bit frustrating to see that, as awesome as I thought that was, 500 people still did it faster! This is when I need to get that tunnel vision back, because that time is fantastic for me. I've been chasing that sub-30 for two years.

This was also the first running race I've done sans music. I've been running more and more lately without the ipod, sometimes just to do it, sometimes because I forget it or it's dead. I still love my running music, especially for long distances, but it's nice to wean myself off it a little. (I did all three tris without music - forbidden in the triathlon world!)

This was also the first race I've done with my Garmin when I really and truly had a time goal. I mean, I had the garmin for the Cinci tri, but I was just trying to survive. I had it for Food on the Run, where I kinda sorta had a time goal but I also knew I was really hurting and was well prepared to throw it out the window. Also a different feeling - and at one point, I had to give myself a mental shake and a talking-to: "Kate, quit looking at your damn garmin every five seconds already!!!" I think it really helped, though; probably because the race starts with a downhill so it's easy to get off to a pretty fast start. It was nice to be able to tell myself, "OK, you can relax; you can do mile 3 in ten minutes and still hit your goal time." (Maybe that's not so good, but again, I was going a little conservatively, and mile 3 also has the uphill version of the aforementioned downhill...so it was nice not to worry that the hill would kill my time.)

Can ya tell I don't really have the personality to push myself to the breaking point in a race?? I just don't. I race at about a tempo pace - it's hard, but I can still enjoy it. Being a non-competitive type is a blessing and a curse and sometimes I wonder if I'd be faster if I were more insanely competitive. Then again, I don't LIKE being slower than people, I just don't feel like going balls out to be faster than them. Maybe I'm weird. Props to you if you even made sense of that!

Oh yeah, day before my birthday I hit a swim PR: one mile in 42:32. Didn't even mean to swim a mile that day; it just felt good.

I seriously just meant to type in my race time and stats here and then I got to rambling. Oh well!!