3.1 miles

Today I ran in the St Patricks day 'Go Green' 5k - my first 5K and the culmination of the Couch to 5K training that I have been doing. It was an early start as the race started at 8am in Vasona Park and of course the clocks went forward overnight. There were 1700 runners, the majority were doing the half marathon, or 10K course, but there were several hundred 5K runners. Here we are at the off... I'm in the pink shirt and black capris.


The cheering crew (Nigel and boys) cycled around the course and cheered me on at several points which was lovely - and very encouraging. I have a load of photos with me getting progressively redder in the face. This photo is taken about 2.5 miles - I'm still smiling!


Adam caught this photo of me going over the finish line. I don't have my chip time yet - but my iPod registered about 39 mins. (The Nike + also recorded the distance as 3.5 miles - so maybe it's not as well calibrated as I thought!).



Finished! The boys were delighted at the food that was available at the finish line! I was pleased that I ran the entire course, and kept a consistent pace for the whole time.

It was fun to do a race almost on the doorstep - we didn't have to worry about parking as we all cycled down to the park. It was a fun atmosphere - although the race organization was rather lacking - a load of 5K runners apparently headed down the 10K route as there was no one to direct. I didn't have a problem as I run in the park all the time so knew which way to head - but it was not well marked. We did get a cute finishers medal.

I'm most pleased with myself that I really did go from couch to 5K...! Having never run before it was a really easy progression to get to running 3 miles. I started really slowly, but once I got into the routine it was really rewarding to see the distance increase every week. Now I need to set another objective to keep up the training.