The weather yesterday in Philadelphia was absolutely beautiful for our first 5K! Going into the big race was both nerve-wracking and incredibly exciting. Since this was my first race I wasn’t entirely sure of how I should prepare for the race, but I do remember that when my brother was on the high school cross country team they always had a big pasta dinner the night before the race. So I figured it couldn’t hurt to enjoy some pasta Saturday night!
The atmosphere on the Ben Franklin Parkway when we arrived at the steps of the Art Museum on Sunday morning was definitely festive. Seeing all of the other people who were going to be participating in the race definitely helped put me in the right frame of mind. Our biggest fear was seeing racers who helped put John F. Kennedy into office and hoping they would not smoke right past us on the course! We laced up our D-Tag trackers and joined in the pre-race stretching.
And then it was off to the starting line for the big race. Never having been in a race before I wasn’t really sure how the start would work with so many runners and I have to say, it’s kind of confusing! The race starts but since you can’t put all of the runners on the starting line at the same time your individual race doesn’t actually start until you cross the finish line.
The race itself was amazing! It was so inspiring to be surrounded by so many runners and they helped motivate me to keep pushing myself further. Mentally it helped to keep challenging myself to pass more runners although hitting the 2-mile mark began a difficult stretch mentally. I had to keep pushing and reminding myself that I could make it to the finish line. And what a great feeling it was to cross over the finish line!
Crossing the finish line of my first 5K!
Sara crossing the finish line
What a great feeling to successfully complete a 5K run…and even more so because I could run in memory of my Grandpa Byma.
Race Day Stats…
267th place (out of 898 runners)
Completed race in 26:44 for a pace of 8:54 per mile
46th out of 190 runners in the Females 20-29 division
98th out of 532 female runners
