So I recently joined a local running group. I’ve been aware of their group on Facebook for the better part of the year because I have a bunch of friends who are members and their posts would always pop up on my feed and I always thought they seemed like an awesome group. I don’t really know what took me so long to join but after a friend in the group nudged me, I finally took the plunge and decided to join in.
What I love about this group is that they are running with a cause – they regularly raise money for various charities, most of them ones that help to fight cancer. That’s something we can all get behind, right? They’re also a hugely supportive group of one another. No one seems to care about pace time – everyone’s out to encourage one another and push everyone to be better. {For you locals, the group is TeamCMMD.org}. I already know a ton of girls in the group but I look forward to finding some folks who are around my pace time to start running with and to get to know. It’s always so much more motivational when you have someone to run with!
I have a couple of buddies who run with me occasionally (shout out to Dottie and Cindy!) but both of them run a bit faster so I always have this nagging voice in my head that thinks that they are running a little slower than usual and I hate to slow them down. (I know they would hate that I am typing this and that they don’t care! But I do.)
But back to this month. So I just joined and they have a team challenge for August – run 10 5ks (legit races or just on your own) and try and beat your best time. I was reluctant to join because I ran my best 5k two years ago at a local Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving. My chip time was 28:50 with an average pace of 9:48. Here’s the stats from it:
That’s pretty fast for me. It was like Arctic cold that day & my Raynauds was out of control so I think I just ran like my life depended on it so I could get warm again.
I didn’t think I could come even close to this time ever again because I normally run around a 10:45 but I also normally go out and run at least 4 miles. So I thought what the heck, I’ll see how I do.
Well guess what, today was day 1 and I came pretty dang close!
Booyah! It was surprising because when I started, I had a headache and was pretty sore from a class I did at the gym on Friday. I decided I would start and not look at my watch for as long as I could and just push it and see what I could manage. When it chimed in at 1 mile that I was running under a 10 minute pace, I was pretty psyched! I will say that during the last mile I was trying hard not to barf up my breakfast but it felt good to push myself because I had goal.
I probably couldn’t have sustained that pace for another mile, hence why I usually run my 4-6 miles at a much slower pace. But it’s a start! I have the rest of the month to run 9 more 5ks and we’ll see if I can come close to this time.
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