Warm Weather and Even Warmer Gatorade: 5K #2,

I am not a morning person. I am not even a mid-morning person. Hardly an afternoon person, actually. I am not really a running person, either (yet). Especially outside, because the outside is not air conditioned and there are no electric fans. When I'm running outside, I often wonder why I'm doing it. Because it really sucks.

That being said, I got up at 6 o'clock in the morning on a Saturday to go and run 3+ miles in the not air-conditioned outside. I was hoping that by the time we got running at 7 the sun would still be on the other side of the horizon, but it turns out the sun rises sometime before 7. I don't know much about sunrise or what time it occurs because it's something that happens while I'm still drooling on my Ramones pillow.

For this race, I didn't try to pump myself up like last time. I didn't even touch my playlist until minutes before we started running. I didn't take it easy on the day before, either. Or at least I didn't mean to. My intentions were to go to the SERF on Friday to pick up our packets and run 3ish miles. What actually happened was this: I picked up the packets after some confusion about which line I was supposed to be in which caused me to look like a dimwit, browsed the shelves full of running apparel at the expo which I didn't even realize would be there (clothing excites me, even if it's of the running variety), and ran exactly half the distance I planned on because I had used up too much of my time looking at the clothes I neither needed nor could afford. Dimwit indeed.

None of that is really important, though. What's important is the race, and you can probably tell by now that I'm beating around the bush. I don't even really feel like writing about it. I didn't make my goal. There, I said it. My goal was to run the entire race and improve by 2 minutes. Actually, that goal was set for me by one of my mom's friends, Wayne. It sounded okay to me. Unfortunately, I didn't make it. And before the race, I even knew I couldn't make it. That's the sad part. I didn't even believe I could do it. Maybe that's part of the reason I didn't.

Besides all of that, the race went well. We met Beth there (my first time meeting her), Wayne's girlfriend, and she was running her very first 5K. I was happy to know that I'd be running with someone who was at my level of instead of just my mom, who I knew would eventually jet ahead of me.

I was still trying to wake up when we started running, and I hadn't even gotten my iPhone ready with my playlist. I was trying to run and get my music going at the same time and it made for a very clumsy, slow start since my phone was already in the nifty little armband/iPhone holder. I'm sure there's a better name for that but I don't feel like looking it up. I did catch up with my mom and Beth after that, though, and we all stayed together well into the 2nd mile. Probably about halfway through, in a sad fit of "I'm too tired to keep going", I just stopped and walked. But I was still happy that I had made it as far as I did, because I didn't even last to the 1 mile mark last time. I started and stopped a few times after that, and Beth stuck by my side the whole time. I guess she needed to rest her legs a little bit, too. I sprinted at the end because, you know, I am a real runner now. My chip time was 38:25, 8 seconds faster than the Full Moon 5K. Considering 7am was the start time and we stopped to take a silly picture -------->
and I had iPhone problems at the beginning, I'd say I was a little faster than my time suggests. Not 2 minutes faster, but still. More than 8 seconds faster. I'm still pleased with myself.

Something that was nice about this race was that they had 2 places where they were handing out cups of water and Gatorade. I was feeling drained, so I went right for the Gatorade. It was extremely warm, though. I was expecting room temperature or maybe even a little chilled, but it was like someone stuck it in a microwave or something. It was better than nothing. Now I just need to learn how to drink it while I'm running without spilling it all over my shirt (another sign of a "real" runner).

Now that the race I've been training for since I began this blog is finished, I feel like I need some goals if I'm going to keep going with running.

I first started writing this blog a couple days ago, and I set this goal:

My first goal is a 10 minute mile. 6mph isn't very comfortable for me, but I'm sure I can do it for 10 minutes. I don't know if it would be easy enough for me to do right now or if it's going to be really difficult, but I want to try and do it since I never have before. Who knows? Maybe I can cross this off my list tomorrow. I'd definitely like to get this one done before school begins on Sept. 2.

I can mark this one off my list because I did it this morning. It was really tough and I puked in my mouth afterwards (sorry, I know that's gross), but I still finished it. So I'm changing it to 1.6mi in 16 minutes. I could barely finish the mile, so 1.6 really is something I'll need to work for. Since my 5K time is around 38 minutes, this would be a significant improvement on my time. I want to make this goal by Sept. 2nd, preferably with my breakfast staying put.

I know this goal may seem small, but that's what I'm going for. Long-term goals are difficult for me to meet because I lose track of what they are and overestimate the time I have to do them. Small goals will eventually pave the way to my much bigger (and right now, seemingly unattainable) goals, like eventually running a 10K or maybe even a Half Marathon. I'm not going to bother putting a date on those, though, because I don't know how much time I'll need to get there. Maybe I can do it next summer. Maybe I can do it the summer after that. Whatever. Baby steps until then.