Chilly Challenge 5K

I have been dying for a nice day to run outside, and I finally got my wish today. Nice, as in not snowing and windy. As in 25 degrees, but sunny and no snow on the roads! I will take it. All I really wanted was to run a nice solid race. I set my Garmin Virtual Partner to a 10:20 pace. Because I didn't have time to get my long run in this week, my plan was to run a little 1 mile warm-up, run the 5K and then run another 4 miles afterwards. Yeah right :) Anyway my husband was nice enough to stay with me for the warm-up and we ran a nice solid mile. I felt pretty good and was hoping I didn't waste too much energy. I actually think it was helpful to run a little warm-up. My first mile was awesome. I couldn't believe it when I looked at my watch after the first quarter mile to see I was running an 8:45 pace. I have never done that before. Anyway I just kept at it and ended up hitting the 1 mile mark at 8:50. The next mile went by pretty easily, and although I couldn't maintain that speedy (for me) pace, I did run the second mile around 9:55, which is still faster than I have ever run before. The third mile was tough- I was getting tired and it was slightly uphill here. As I was hitting 2.5, I started to realize that I could actually achieve one of my goals for 2011, which was to run a 5K in under 30 minutes. I was running just over a 10 minute mile now, so I knew I had to pick it up if I had any chance. I picked a guy in front of me to pass and I turned it on full steam- finishing the last tenth of a mile at a 7:57 pace. I did pass him, and my Garmin time was 29:57. I did it! I didn't know if I would ever meet my goal, and here it is February, and I did it. I slaughtered my Virtual Partner too- my pace was 9:42. My legs were hurting after that, and although we tried to run another 4 miles, I could only muster another 1.68. We decided that was enough, and that my long run would need to be a little short this week. Normally a long run is far from running all out, and I really had nothing left at that point. It was a nice race and very well organized, with yummy chili at the end. Yay for my PR and yay for my husband who got a PR and placed 3rd in his age group today!