(pictures courtesy of Lydia Baehr PR)

On Saturday morning, Jeffrey and I participated in Houston’s Health Museum Run for Your Life 5K race. I wrote about the race for CultureMap, link here with more pictures. This race is the only race I’m signed up for before the Dallas Run the Rock Half Marathon on December 5, so I used the morning as a dress rehearsal.

I started the usual way with laying out my clothes the night before and eating one piece of toast with peanut butter and raspberries in the morning, along with coffee and water.

The race had 450 people, and as most 5Ks are, it was very relaxed. But still, I wanted to push it and make it a good race. It’s also my first 5K since I’ve been blogging and tracking my times, so I had to do good to report back to the whole Internet!

Here are my splits for the 5K and then I’ll tell you what happened next…

(Marci’s note later–this splits are incorrect, I didn’t realize my Garmin was not calibrated. I completed the 5K in 33:37.)

Mile 1: 08:14
Mile 2: 09:28
Mile 3: 10:08
Mile .6: 00:05:46

Total: 33:37 for 3.59 miles 9:20 avg pace, avg heart rate 172, calories 382

I also wondered why my Garmin was ahead of the mile markers during the race, and it ended up that I showed the course as 3.59 miles instead of 3.1. I don’t think I took that many extra steps out of the way, and I don’t know how courses are measured, but .5 miles over is a lot for a 5K! Either way, I went much faster than I have ever gone, I kept a good pace the whole time, didn’t stop to walk at all, and really tried to be quick. Official time was 33:37 for 3.1, but I say 33:37 for 3.6.

So then I waited for Jeffrey to finish, and we were home before 9 a.m. I was feeling good and decided to go back outside and see if I could do more. I refilled my water bottle, grabbed 3 Shot Bloks for the road, and left. It was like my long run had a 30 minute pit stop in the middle.

I started running again and my shins were so sore. Then I knew I had gone too fast for the first 3.5 miles and actually thought I’d just walk around the block. It was very hot in the 80s too. I walked a little under one mile and decided to start running again, and my legs were fine. So I kept running and did all kinds of math in my head to calculate how far I needed to go to make this a true long run, when I could turn around, and exactly how far I had gone, since I restarted the Garmin at 0.

I ended up going 8.6 miles on Saturday, my new longest run! I felt great. Took Shot Bloks around miles 6, 7, 8 and finished my water. So I consumed about 45 ounces of water over the 8.6 miles. The break in the middle was a great time to refill.

Here are the next splits:

	
Mile 1: 13:10 (walking mostly)
	
Mile 2:11:07
	
Mile 3: 11:32
	
Mile 4:12:26
	
Mile 5:11:37
	
.04 00:27

Total: 1 hr for 5.04 miles, avg pace 11:57 (including mile 1 walking), avg heart rate 153, calories burned 517

For the whole morning, I went 8.63 miles in 1:33 time and burned 899 calories. That is pretty great! I really liked how I dropped to a more comfortable pace for the last 5 miles but still went faster than last week when I ran 8 miles.

There’s me in the front, blue shorts at the start.

Bring on 13.1!! Well, almost ready.