I had waited so long for this day. The Big House Big Heart 5K. Finish on the 50 yard line inside Michigan Stadium! From the moment I saw the article in the Ann Arbor News back in June, I was so there for this race. I'm a Michigan grad and football fan, so I could simply not pass up the opportunity to set foot on the hallowed ground inside the Big House.
I had a specific goal in mind: to finish under 26:00. Otherwise I just wanted to have fun. And fun was had! It was a beautiful day for running. Cool, dry, and still. I had on the Garmin, ready to put it to the test for the first time. I took Fritz's advice and set it to "Auto Lap" in one-mile increments so it would keep track of my pace per mile. It worked beautifully. Thanks for the hint!! It would have worked more beautifully if I hadn't accidentally fumbled at the finish line and double-hit the start/stop button without realizing it, so I stopped and then restarted the timer...I noticed I had done so after about 2 minutes had passed. That made for an interesting pace graph when I downloaded the race info into the Garmin Trainer program at home later. Oh well...learning experience!
I reached my goal of finishing under 26:00. I finished in 25:28, better than I had anticipated, and finished 28th out of 196 in my age group. 8:11/mile average pace! According to my Garmin I ran mile splits of 8:10, 8:04, and 8:14. I didn't really feel like I was overly stressing myself. It was a good hard workout but I wasn't left utterly drained and dazed at the end.
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3 comments:
Great job on the race! Finishing at the Big House must have been pretty awesome.
You're welcome! I'm glad that it worked well for you!
And great job accomplishing your goal! I hope we get a chance to meet during the Detroit Free Press festivities! Are you going to the expo on Friday or Saturday?
We're heading to the expo on Saturday. A whole carload of us (my husband, and my friends from California who are coming all the way to Michigan to run the race).
I'm pretty excited just to go to the expo. I looked at the list of vendors at the marathon web site and I'm sure I will find something to spend money on.
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