my first 5k, and a new toy

On May 4 I swung by REI to pick up a new toy... it's a Garmin Forerunner 201. This little gadget is a wrist-mounted personal training device that collects performance data based on GPS technology. I'm a geek, I really wanted numbers to look at over the next 5 months. Now I can gather data and look at it. Maybe put the data points into pretty charts? The thought makes me giddy.

Following that I took my new toy on a run around the Willamette Esplanade. It took me 30 min 31 sec to complete the loop. I know the time is correct. What I'm not sure about is the official distance of the loop. The Garmin GPS unit was set to bike-riding mode, and was set to the previous owner's personal data (I think it was an REI return as it was fully charged and the AC charger cable was blatantly not nicely bundled with a twisty tie). Also, since the esplanade loop is partially underneath bridges, the GPS unit lost contact with the satellites long enough to believe the loop was 3.9 miles in length (yeah, over a mile off. I'm pretty sure the loop is more like 2.7 miles long). Anyway, since the data was flawed, I went ahead and erased it and the one other entry in the history of the device that could only have been left by the previous owner.

Then I set the device up with my personal data.

On May 5, Hana, Val, and I ran the 5k amongst a gaggle of animal lovers. The three of us resisted the urge to go fast from the start, and instead intentionally started at a nice slow pace, and kept going... slow and steady. At first it appeared we were bringing up the rear of the 5k runners (maybe a dozen total? not many runners)... after about a mile we passed about 2 or 3 people who clearly hadn't been training to run a 5k non-stop. They may have started faster than us, but they had burnt themselves out. After the halfway turn around point, we passed a runner that had to stop because her dog was clearly over-worked (laying in the grass panting under a tree). Poor thing. After that we ran into the masses of 5k walkers... so it started to become unclear how we were doing compared to other runners.

We reached the end (actually, never found the finish line, I don't think one was set up since it wasn't a race technically... we eventually went back to the starting point for lack of a better final destination). My Garmin said we had completed a 3.36 mi run in 40 min 18 seconds... averaging 12 minute miles and burning 288 calories total.

We did it! We successfullly ran a 5k nonstop!! I believe it was all of our first non-stop 5k, so that was really really great! Also, we all FELT good after we were done. None of us were sore or in pain. It just felt really good. I don't know how else to explain it.

I'll run another run on Monday me thinks. I've got 2 weeks until the marathon training begins, but I don't want to lose whatever progress I've made in the mean time.

I can't believe how nice it feels to run. I wasn't expecting that. All this time I thought distance running was all pain and effort and boring. The 5k on Saturday made me really optimistic about the upcoming training. I think it's going to be worth doing for more than just being able to eat alot of pasta whenever I want.

Neat.