One Year in the Making

​One year ago this weekend will mark the one year anniversary of my first competitive race. I grew up an athlete and missed having a sport. I had always been a runner at heart (well it was mostly just for fun, and I never knew my pace or wanted to). I decided about nine months earlier that I would run in a local race because it just seemed like a fun challenge. I didn't know going into it if this was a one time deal or not. I didn't even know how racing worked so all I could do what keep an open mind. I trained almost every day for it starting with a 10 minute/mile pace for a 5k gradually getting to under 8 minutes where I felt comfortable enough to compete. 

I'll be the first to admit I had no idea what I was doing. I knew nothing of negative splits or even simple pacing strategies. I remember all the thoughts going through my mind the first race. "Did I start off too fast, I bet I did." "Do I have enough energy to finish with a strong last mile" and of course "why isn't this over yet it feels like we've been running for hours." 

After what seemed like forever, I completed my first race and got a sweet finisher's medal as a reward. To my surprise, I won an overall female award also which was quite the honor. After this race, I was hooked and knew running would be my next project. My 5k times around this point were slightly under 24 minutes, and I was okay with at the moment but surely wanted to improve with practice. It's crazy to see how far I've come since then from everything to my pacing strategies, my workouts, and my overall running times. It's been quite the year racing, and I look forward to what the future holds with running.