This morning was the Panther Prowl 5K. It was a pretty small run/walk, smaller probably than the St. Patty’s Day 5K I did back in March, but I had chosen to run this one as part of my 50K goal for Runfos partly because of the distance (I don’t need to train a ton to do a 5K) and partly because of the fact that it was local, and as luck would have it, very cheap ($6 preregistration FTW).
I wasn’t too concerned about being able to run the race or about beating my previous 5K time. In fact, if anything, I was a little overconfident walking into the race. I probably wasn’t properly hydrated beforehand and had underestimated just how warm it would be this morning; it was 80 degrees already and a bit muggy when the run had started. I’ve run in the heat once before earlier this week, and it was not exactly an experience I’d consider “enjoyable”.
I had loaded a playlist on my phone for the run, opting for some classics (mix is listed below), and I think it really hit the spot this morning. My attempts to run with my earbuds met with complete and utter failure, and they were out before the first half mile. Worse, though, was that my RunKeeper app lost the GPS fix it had on me partway through, and because the circuit was essentially a loop around the block, it really cheated me on distance; in the end it pegged me at about a half mile distance in 25 minutes time. I was more bothered with the fact that it wasn’t giving me an accurate pace, but I figured that I had run the River Bank Run phoneless and would make it through this without any problems.
Fortunately, since I was at the start of the group to begin with, the time on the race clock was accurate, and I did my best time ever: 25 minutes, 11 seconds. My pace was a full 30 seconds faster than my best run times before, and all that was in weather 20 degrees cooler than what I ran in today.
Despite only being a 5K, this morning’s race really cemented in place the idea that I could be a runner, and a decent runner at that. I’m officially pumped for the rest of the season, and I can’t wait for the next major run: the Lakeshore Miracle 10K in July.
Panther Prowl Playlist:
The Police // Roxanne
Boston // Don’t Look Back
Boston // Foreplay/Long TIme
REO Speedwagon // That Ain’t Love
Boston // Peace of Mind
The Police // Message in a Bottle
Wham! // The Edge of Heaven (I didn’t get to this one)
The only reason there wasn’t some Journey in there was because it wasn’t on my phone. Unthinkable, I know.
Leave a Reply