Days 114 & 115: If you can run, you can run a race

Taking it easy the last two weeks, I have been running scarcely and short distances. But that period is over now.
Do you remember that I planned something to celebrate my 100 days of running?
Well, that’s official now: WE ARE GOING FOR A RACE! MRB and I, that is. We registered for the Nike Women’s 10k in Amsterdam on May 16th. I really like the motto of it:

IF YOU CAN RUN, YOU CAN RUN A RACE

 

This is going to be my very first running event, so I hope it will be great. We have two months to go, and to train for the race, I decided to use My Asics plan again. I am familiar with it, and it has the flexibility and simplicity I need. Nike+ provides a training plan for the event, too, but I am not that familiar with the Nike+ running app. It looks nice and all, but seems to have more difficulties syncing to GPS than the Asics one (which isn’t perfect on that, either, but I blame it on the tall buildings around). I plan on running 4 times a week, with yoga and dancing classes on the rest days (apart from Saturdays, when I have a yoga class and a run planned). On the run days, I do some extra yoga with Adriene to stretch after running.

And this is how my first two days of the training went!

Saturday

I took a break for almost a week, and the previous run was only a 2k, so this 5k felt glorious. I got my pi-distance in (3.14 miles)… Ok, I ran a couple more steps than that. But it still counts, right? Funny thing, someone chalked πs all over the pavements in the area!
I also baked a cranberry&cherry pie for dinner, which was ridiculously sweet.

And look at all the spring galore on my trail! It was wonderful to see all the flowers and buds and green contrasting against still gray sky and environment.

Distance: 5.2km
Time:       32:49

Sunday

Oh, my training plan was pushing me already – 8k! I have never ran that far before, but it was alright. It was also my longest run to date. Interestingly, at one point into the run I started feeling tired, and I thought to myself, probably I crossed the 5k point. It was true; my phone was showing 5.4km. Seems that my body got used to and feels comfortable in the 5k distance now. Somehow, it makes me feel good about myself. On the other hand, even though I don’t know my splits, I am sure the last 3km were slower than then first 5. Negative splits are still something out of my reach. But I’ll get there, in time.

One thing I struggle with is taking it slow. These were both supposed to be ” jog” runs – but I seem to suck at jogging. Big time. Way above the requested pace. When I concentrate I can run a bit slower, but then I get into my comfortable zone and I just, well, run, at my natural easy pace. Which is somewhere around 6:30-6:40 mins/km.

Distance: 8.1km
Time:       55:55

What was your first race? Do you have any tips for us how to prepare for it?