Lessons learned.

Obviously I would learn some lessons from my first 5K. I was extremely dissatisfied with my time. Yes, I am slow. I average a 12 minute mile on the treadmill and between an 11 minute and 12 minute mile outside. My average for the race was 13:30ish! Yes, I did stop several times to walk, but STILL! Mike said my time was good for a first time 5K...he expected me to finish in 45:00 (thanks for the vote of confidence, Honey), but I was still unhappy with my time.

I went over the race over and over in my head, because it would be unlike me to NOT dissect and overthink things, and I came up with a solution as to WHY I may have gotten such a slow time: I wasn't prepared mentally.

I spent all my time preparing for the race itself...building up time and endurance running, but I never thought about changing up WHERE I ran, or running in front of people. I did okay making the transition from treadmill to pavement, that wasn't the mistake I made...the mistake I made was choosing the SAME treadmill everytime at the same time everyday. I was used to the people I was running in front of because they were the SAME people every time! And when I did choose to train outdoors, it was at 6 o'clock in the morning, when NO ONE was out to see me. I know. Its dumb, but I have this huge complex about running in front of others. :P

So because of this, I think my race time suffered. I thought about every person I ran past, all the people in their cars, everything BUT the run itself.

But I have another race this weekend. Hopefully I can get my head in it and run better. Mike will be with me and he'll have the double stroller, so maybe having him by my side will make me feel comforted. Let's hope so!

Sidenote: Mike told me that as I was crossing the finish line, the spectators heard Noah call out "MOMMY!" and started shouting "Go Mommy! Yeah Mommy!" with him. :)