Indeed I can run it, run it

Julie and I conquered the Big Dog 5K this morning! We met up at 8:30 for some much-needed sustenance and coffee from Espresso Royale. After that, we headed over in the early morning chill to the Esplanade. Julie got her very first number for a race, which is very cool. She was 167, I was 168. Not surprising, considering we signed up for the race together.

As usual, we were there entirely too early, so we spent a lot of time scoping out the scene, stretching and listening to Brian Bergeron playing live before the race.

I've never actually run in a race outside of school ones, so this was definitely interesting. This race wasn't seeded at all either (why would it be?), so the first two or three minutes after the gun went off, I spent most of my time trying to navigate past people. It was frustrating because I was running slower than I wanted to for those first few minutes, but that's okay.

My first mile split was 7:23. The distance between mile 1 and mile 2 seemed much further. The last mile and a tenth was definitely the slowest, but I finished 21st for the ladies in 23:49. I stand by my statement that middle school me would have whooped me in this race. Even though this was only a 5K, it made me remember how different running for training runs and running for races is.

I am sure Julie knows this, but her much better (25:13!) 5K time does not appear in a Google search. Yet. I guess we'll have to keep running these things to knock that other time out of the 50 links or so associated with her name.