Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Ran my first 5k...6k rather.

Our good friends Juliana and Ammon invited us to their church's fundraiser 5k last month. Since we were secretly doing the couch to 5k, I figured that it was a good goal for beginner runners like myself.

We drove up to Bel Air, and found the beautiful park with a pond with very blue water (which had HUGE catfish) and a nice running trail. So off we went.

I wasn't running to win, but wanted to run the entire thing. My personal goal was to do the whole thing under 30 minutes.

I took care to not run too quickly at the beginning and went at an easy pace. This was a family friendly race, so there were lots of kids running too. Actually Juliana and Ammon were in a category called "men and women pushing strollers". Well, they are super athletic and tough, so after Juliana passed me I couldn't see her anymore.

So I ran and ran. Eventually I couldn't see anyone anymore ahead of me. I guess I look to my left when I'm not thinking (perhaps I'm right brained when not illustrating. I don't know. that's weird.), so I totally missed the right turn into the finish line. I ran about extra 500 meters until I realized that I must have missed something.

I made some sad gestures trying to get an attention of a cyclist coming my way, but he ignored me. All sad, I turned around and jogged back. Fortunately by that time, I saw another runner that was in the same race as me, so I followed her to the goal. Not climatic.

So both Juliana and Ammon won prizes for their fast running. Yay! I told them that if they had an age bracket that was specific to my birthday, I would've won. Or I could get the "special runner award" for running the extra kilometer. Not that I'm into winning or anything. :)

So I did my first 5k! I even photoshopped my T-shirt to reflect my achievements:



Oh, and my time running the 6k? 38:49. Not bad, but can do better.

1 comment:

Melissa said...

Congratulations Ikumi! Fun to hear about your accomplishment. Scott and I always miss our turns, but we get there eventually. The important thing is making the effort - and keeping at it. I'm running too, just a couple miles at a time since the pregnancy, but plan to stick with it and make progress!