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.

Setting some PBs

Tomorrow I'll be setting a personal best at the Big Dog 5K. How do I know this is going to happen? Because I've never run a 5K before so there's really nothing to beat. Whatever I get will be what I get and it will be my PB. I'm not concerned about my time because, after all, I'm not training for a 5K. I'm training for a marathon. But every once in a while it is good to tap into that inner racer, the competitive drive within all of us.

And I'm curious to see how this will affect my Google search results. Like anyone with excessive time on their hands, I'm prone to wasting many a hot minute searching for myself on the Internet. Note: that is not meant to sound philosophical. No. I just like to see the order in which links to my work come up and check in on my newest appearances in other blogs and websites. You're right, I'm truly as arrogant as that sounds. But it's funny because one website that always comes up is titled Paramus 5K Run. It contains the score results from a race in October 2002. And, sure enough, someone with my name competed in that race and clocked in at 45:58. The other Julie was 18 at the time. I was 15, a sophomore in high school.

With any luck, I can set a personal best for the both of us and maybe the results will make it to the Internet. I guess we'll find out, uh, tomorrow.