The second Elk Grove Fun Run for 2011 was held on Saturday, May 21st.
I was at the end of 10 weeks of slowly returning to running after my shin issues in February and my only expectation for this run was to run for 30 minutes then walk if needed and finish strong. We got to the race a little early and warmed up with some walking and dynamic stretching before the race began. I started out slow, not wanting to get too tired too soon, and felt sluggish for the first 1/2 mile or so. But once I reached the first mile marker I was surprised to see a sub 11-minute pace! I was warmed up and my legs were feeling good. I wasn’t feeling tired and definitely felt like I could maintain my pace. Once I passed the second mile marker and saw another sub 11-minute mile I knew I could PR if I could pick up the pace just a little. I dug deep and ran my heart out and saw a sub 10-minute mile when I passed the three mile marker and soared through the last 0.10 of the race to finish strong.
Mile 1 – 10:27
Mile 2 – 10:24
Mile 3 – 9:56
Last 0.13 – 1:02 {8:12 pace}
Garmin Results ~ 3.13 / 31:51 / 10:11 avg pace
Official Results ~ 3.10 / 31:55 / 10:17 avg pace
6th in my age group
NEW 5k PR!!!
When I finished and saw that I had beat my PR by over 1 1/2 minutes I was stunned! I knew that all my hard work and dedication to slowly building my running back up had paid off. And that is a great feeling :)
Finishing this race with a PR and knowing that I dug deep and finished strong gives me a lot of confidence going into my base building training phase. During the last few months while I was building my running back up and cross training I’ve gained a lot of fitness and dropped a few pounds. I’m feeling like a stronger runner and ready to continue to increase my running mileage into the fall race season with a half marathon and a full marathon planned later this year!
The husband took this photo on his iPhone of me heading into the finish!
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