It’s been mere hours since I crossed the finish line at Globe’s Run For Home and I’m still quite on a high because of what I accomplished. I ran my first sub-30 minutes 5km run. Yes, I know it’s not really a big deal if you’re really into the sport but I’m quite new at this and all the little “achievements” thrill me. There are no official times yet but the clock read “29:16″ when I passed it. Assuming that it took me around 6-10 seconds to cross the start line – I was in the fourth row of runners — I think it’s more or less very safe inside the sub 30 range.
Run For Home is my fourth running event in nine weeks. This is my first time running the 5km event. I chose to opt for the 10km course during my first event (Condura Run – February 7, 2010) and it was clear that I had bitten off more than what I could chew. My lungs were giving outs midway and I could only manage a time of 1 hour 9 minutes. Hardly a strong time, and yes, it’s quite embarrassing to admit that I did walk about a kilometer or so of the course.
I decided to go down to the 5km to accommodate my lungs. It’s also much easier to train for the 5km since the main concern is speed and not stamina nor endurance. I finished the course in 34:48. It made me believe that a sub 30 time was very possible. During the next run (Unilab Run For Wellness), I was able to improve my time to 33:11.
This is what I love about running, just like basketball (the sport that I love the most), the sport would love you back if you put in the work. I’ve only been running for a little over 2 months but I’ve been able to cut my time by over 5 minutes. With my usual running pace, five minutes is very significant since that’s close to the amount of time I need to cover a kilometer. I can see my time improving and I can feel my body getting used to running faster. The sport really rewards you immensely for the effort that you put in. Running also gives you an insight on how you can further improve. During several times in the race, you would have to push yourself to exceed your perceived limits. You would feel that you’re not going as fast as you should be and you would be tortured by the idea that you just can’t. Those are the moments that you can look back on to see how much more you have to improve on.
The four-minute improvement actually scares me a bit since I feel like it would make beating my new time fairly difficult in the future. I still think it’s possible but it would require a lot more effort on my part as well as more smart way of looking at how I run. I still feel like I’m not pacing myself well enough to put myself in a position to finish strong. That’s something I have to work on.
If you’re a new runner, don’t let poor finish times faze you. You will always run another day and you would surely keep on improving as long as you continue building your speed and stamina through training and putting yourself in the proper mindset.
I’m really excited to run a few days from now to see if I can do better than the 29:16 mark I set. If previous results could be used as a barometer, my time probably puts me in the top 250 finishers for my event.
Keep running!
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Congrats. I never reached sub 30 since am injured.