I knew I could do it!

I've done three 5ks so far this season. The first was pretty darn slow, even for me. I like that I run and it makes me feel healthy and awesome and all take-on-the-world-y, but I'm sure not the fastest person ever to don sneakers. Slow for me is, shall we say, just above a shuffle. I chalked it up to (which is to say, rationalized it as) getting back into running after a hiatus, using it as a baseline for the rest of the year, et cetera, et cetera.

The second outing was similarly slow, and I was actually a little baffled, what with my time for 3.1 miles of solid running being slower than 3.1 miles at the gym with some walking thrown in. Obviously, gym treadmills aren't necessarily calibrated with the utmost precision, but still. Strange. I think my poor showing had a lot (well, at least some) to do with my being way the heck in the back of the pack (where I should be!) at the start line, and so not actually starting when the clock did. Seriously, the thousands of people in front of me took a while to clear out.

Race three was slow, too. I walked parts of it. Mainly because I had the realization about halfway through that I'd forgotten to eat breakfast, and, oh, that's why I was feeling all weak and weird. Whoops.

Anyway, I've been pretty sure all along that my legs have got it in them to run a slightly more respectable 5k under good conditions (that is, with adequate training, nourishment in my stomach, more accurate timing, shoes tied to just the right amount of tension, hair affixed properly and out of my face, and any number of other peripheral factors working in my favor). And lo, on the day that my mp3 player batteries failed me (horror of horrors!), I was able to run not one... not two (as was my previous maximum)... but THREE POINT ONE MILES at a ten minute mile pace overall.

And I didn't even feel pukey from sprinting too hard. Rock!