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Today I ran my first 5K race in nine years. By pure coincedince, it has to be nearly nine years to the day. The last cross country race I ran was the week of the national convention for the regionals at lancaster high school. I went to the national FFA convention, convinced grandma and grandpa to come pick me up, and had them get me back to ohio so I could run for my team after we qualified for regionals. We qualified at regionals, largely thanks to me. I passed up two west union runners on the last hill at the district cc meet, and finished third on the team. This week was the national convention, but I am not sure about the regional meet date. It would seem that I added on about 9 minutes in the nine years since my last race. I finished in 28:04

At any rate, I wasn't really sure what to expect when I left this morning to go run. I was unsure about my fitness level and had two main thoughts. One, I wanted to be sure to finish. Two, I was hoping to be under thirty minutes. I accomplished both and felt pretty good about the event. I wasn't as tired as I thought I would be after the race. I didn't go especially hard either, only running a 28:04. This really just serves as a measuring stick for what I can improve on in the future. I would like to get under 25 by next race or event.

Statistically I finished 3/7 in my age group. I was hoping I might be able to win the age group, but am not terribly disappointed I didn't. I saw last years results and that no one in the 25-29 group ran. I finished 29th overall, and there were 52 runners overall. So I didn't finish in the top half, which was a bit disappointing. I was disheartened every time I saw what mile marker I was at. The first and second mile seemed real slow, but I was running a 9 minute pace. 6 women ran faster than me, and I finished right behind two of them. I do have something I would like to brag about. After the first half mile got settled in, I passed up about 5 people, and was never passed up by anyone. The last person I passed up turned the wrong way and got turned around real quick. I was gonna sprint ahead of him on the final stretch anyways. He finished 6 seconds behind me, so hooray me.

After the race, I went to dicks and bought some more running shorts and clothes. I had one good pair of shorts for running, and the rest were basketball shorts. I found that now that I sweat and burn about 500 calories every workout, I can't reuse shorts like I could when I first started out.

I am really looking forward to getting out and running again. I had fun racing today.