Today I ran my first race. 🙂 It was the Run Shadyside 5K. I finished in 28:32, so my mile pace was 9:12. It could have been better, but I wasn't disappointed. I learned a few lessons from today. 1) While it was a good idea for me to avoid coffee this morning, and hot chocolate isn't a known diuretic, I ought to limit my fluid intake prior to a race. Running with an uncomfortable bladder is suboptimal, to say the least. 2) I need to pace myself better. My first mile pace was about 30 seconds faster than it should have been. For the Great Race 10K, I'll be keeping pace with Rob of UnSpace. Hopefully, he'll keep me from going faster than 9 minutes/mile for the first half. 3) Though running with the vestiges of a head cold is doable, it's certainly not preferable. 😉

The image shown is a graph of my mile pace times since I started timing my runs (Open in a separate page to see at full size). I started running to shed some pounds and some fat, but now I'm enjoying the sport itself. It's a great way to push myself. Running faster than other people would be cool, but right now I'm focusing on beating myself. If I only worried about losing weight, I think I'd get discouraged because progress is slow. By setting time and distance goals for myself, I have something with more immediate results to strive for. I'm running the Great Race 10K next weekend and I might run the Pace Race 5K on October 8. If any Pittsburghers know of any races I might be interested in, please let me know.

For some good running advice, check out these UnSpace articles:

5K Race Strategy: A Must-Read
5K & 10K Race Strategy: Preparation
5K & 10K Race Strategy: The Race Course