Today I had my very first race which was a 5K.  It was The Half 5K in Dallas.  I managed to place 5th in my age group....right in the middle since there were only 9 people in my age group.  I also placed 95th overall out of 241 runners.  My chip time was 30:11.62.  I'm a little disappointed as I really wanted to come in under 30 mins, but I came very close and I know I will do better the next time around.

Here is a link to the official results .

This race was a great learning experience.  I had been training recently at about a 9:46/mile pace, but I didn't know how fast I should run in the race.  My initial thought was to run the first mile at my training pace and see how I felt.  If I felt good, I would then increase the pace, running negative splits.

Well, as the starting horn went off, that all went out the window.  I had my Polar watch on and I ran the first mile at a 8:20/mile pace, even creeping up to faster than that at times.  With all the excitement and people around, my whole game place disappeared.  It wasn't until the second mile did I manage to settle into a nice consistent 9:00/mile pace.  Still faster that I would have probably liked, but it felt doable.

I started to get a side stitch at round 2.5 miles so that made it really tough.  My pace eventually dropped to around a 10:30/mile pace as I struggled with my breathing and trying to run through the side stitch.

If it wasn't for the stitch, I could have probably gone a bit faster.  My average HR during training is usually 154 with a peak of around 172.  For the race, the average was 167 with a peak of 176.  I was only working a bit harder than my training runs.

In the end, I enjoyed the experience and I'm already thinking about when my next race will be.  I'll probably do another 5K and follow that up with a 10K. 

I didn't have my music for this race, but I think I will definitely use it the next time around.  It will help me focus on my running and help me ignore all the others around me.  It was also very disconcerting hearing my breathing which I don't normally hear while I'm training.  I know there is a lot of debate as to whether racers should listent to music, but I tried it without and next I'll try it with music.