therunnerwithin

Today is Tuesday, and you know what that means! I’m joining Erika from MCM Mama Runs, Patty from My No-Guilt Life, and April from Run the Great Wide Somewhere  for Tuesdays on the Run Linkup. This week’s topic is all about the best race I ever ran.

I thought long and hard about this one. What was my best race ever? My first half? The Glass Slipper Challenge? Ultimately, the best race I ever ran would have to be my first 10K. It was my first “longer distance” race after completing 5Ks for a couples of years.

I think I was more nervous for this race than I was for my first half, surprisingly. The race was called the St. Pete Beach Classic. I was familiar with this race as my sister had ran it several times in the past. When I first made the decision to push past my comfort zone and register for a 10K the St. Pete Beach Classic was the first and only race to come to mind for a 10K.

The memory of that morning is still fresh in my head. It was the coldest weather I had run in to date (at that time) with a temperature of 52 degrees and windy conditions. I remember running out to Target the night before to pick up a pair of running tights and a long sleeve shirt to wear. Today, I laugh at that memory as 52 degree for me now is t-shirt and capris running attire.

I wont spend too much detailing out the race as you can read that on my recap here.

I think what made this race so special to me was that it was where I pushed past my boundaries of running a 5K and challenged myself to a whole new level. Surely I had a couple 4 and 5 miler training runs, and one 6 mile run leading up to the race, but a training run and a race run are completely different. I tried not to focus too much on my time, I just wanted to finish and finish strong. Looking back I am proud of myself for being able to run just about the entire race, with the exception of one walk break where I had to use my inhaler due to the colder air. I crossed the finish line with a time of 1:07:46, a pace of 10:48! My average pace time for 5ks, at that time, was around 11:30. Seeing those results on my Garmin was such an aww moment.

What was the best race you ever ran?

Link up with MCM Mama Runs, My No-Guilt Life, and Run the Great Wide Somewhere and several other bloggers for Tuesdays on the Run! Link up your post about the week’s theme so your post will be found in the archives.

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