Yesterday was the Sacred Steps 5K at Resurrection. I’d never participated in an official race like that before, and I loved it! I started off with Andrew and Dagney; it was good to have friends by my side navigating the mass of people. Andrew and I had similar goals for the race and I felt like it would help push me and keep me on pace to run with him – boy was I right. Our first two miles were right about 9:30 and I was feeling good.
As I started to feel a bit winded Andrew asked, shall we pick a couple of people to pass? I told him to name our target and so he picked out a couple of people not far in front of us and we picked up our pace with the hopes of passing them. Just as we were about to pass them Andrew called out another target further ahead and just as we were about to pass them he called out yet another target and we set out to pass them. It was a brilliant strategy – we constantly kept setting and reevaluating our goal – we were never satisfied to have acheived a goal (sure it felt good, but there was another one coming to tackle) – we pushed ourselves but felt good doing so.
As we came around a curve near the end of the race we realized that the route took a turn we weren’t counting on and I had to slow down as Andrew went forward. Still, as I crossed the finish line the official race clock said 29:05 and we probably started about 30 seconds or so after that clock did. I haven’t seen an official time yet, but would guess that I ran right about 28:40 or so. I was thrilled!
Running the race yesterday illustrated for me some important principles of life:
- Training is vitally important (for whatever we do)
- Having friends by your side makes a huge difference
- Constantly setting (and resetting goals) is an important part of pushing yourself to perform your best.
I’m looking forward to my next 5K now – anyone running one in the KC area soon?
Changing To Bring Change 
Thanks 🙂 I am glad that it worked out well. Depending on if you have responsibilities on these Sundays – http://abbysrun.com/ and http://www.gobblergrindmarathon.com/ (5K on each of them) might be possibilities
I was out of town this weekend and missed the “race.” However I would like to begin training for next year. Are there any physical fitness support groups at our church?
Congrats, Jeff! I had a feeling you’d do well, but didn’t want to jinx anything. You’re success is a great form of encouragement and motivation to me – thanks!!