Today was race day. It was fun to see the progress I have made from the beginning of the summer, when I did my first 5K, to now. One really big stepping stone for me came in the last few weeks when I realized I was able to run a whole mile at a time and that I only need to take walking breaks in between the miles. And it’s so ironic that that discovery came out of being frustrated that I had a bad running day where I couldn’t even make 3 miles. It helped me greatly today during the race. I ran each mile and only walked in between miles for a few minutes to catch my breath. Amazingly it seems easier just to run the entire mile without stopping.

Today in the race, the first mile went by really quickly!  I couldn’t believe I had come up to the first mile marker when I did. This, even with the race beginning with running up a steep hill.

I remember after the race began, everything seemed quiet around me except for the sound of lots of feet in unison hitting the pavement. It was a great sound, and a great feeling to be part of it.

Running regularly and having a strategy of one warm up mile, one mile, and one home-stretch mile, really help break up the run for me into manageable pieces. I’m looking forward to the day when I can run the entire 5K from start to finish without walking at all.