You read that right!  Girlfriend who couldn’t even bang out one mile took her first 5-miler this Sunday!  The morning started out with the exploration of my NEW Garmin!

Pretty!

Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the mileage thingy to work, nor the wireless heart rate monitor so I was all about the timer.  Before I left, I only had coffee, as I simply can’t run on a full-stomach.  My morning consisted of many errands while Husband was at baseball and I lost track of time.  I ended up starting my run at about 1 pm with no food!  Silly me- I need to buy some Goo for these cases.  Anyway, I set up my splits before I ran (as suggested by my father in law, Jim).  I wanted to do 5 miles, which is marked by the river so I didn’t need the mileage portion of my Garmin anyway.  I wanted to do 5 miles and work on my pacing.  For this long a distance (hadn’t really ever done before and wasn’t sure if I even COULD!) I wanted to just do 5 miles at 11 minute miles each, bringing my time to 55 minutes.  I set my splits up to be 11, 22, 33, 44 and 55. Easy breezy, well, good news- I SURPASSED these splits BIG time!  Yes, I was definitely feeling mile 5 (strangely mostly in my hip flexors).  It was SOOO awesome down by the river because there were many crew races going on so I had some amazing scenery.  The weather was unbeatable as well. SO, I completed 5 miles in 50:37!  Woo hoooooo!  My splits were as follows and I had to stop twice (once to use a porta-john awesome, and once beucase I ripped a hole in my foot-a blister that i thought was busting through my sock):

9:48

19:32

28:58

39:02

50:37

SO PROUD OF MYSELF.  I definitely “looked the part” on my way home: