Earlier this month, I participated in my first running race in over 7 years – the Big Peach 5K Run. In preparation for this, for the past 8 weeks I had been working through Hal Higdon’s 5K training plan. The plan was simple and easy for me to understand – just the way I like it! I was able to follow it without missing any runs so when it came to race day, I felt ready and knew I would be finishing the race. If you want to cut to the chase, here is the race on Garmin Connect.

That morning, I woke up and walked down to the MARTA station and rode it to the Brookhaven exit. I followed a group of people who looked like they knew where they were going, only to find that none of us did! After eventually taking a tunnel under MARTA, we found the registration area. It went quick and painless, and after a 10 minute wait for the bathroom, I was ready to go. There were only 1,200 people registered, but it sure seemed like a lot to me. Peachtree should be very interesting with over 50,000 people!

My main goal for this race was just to finish, and since I had been following the training plan and growing stronger, I was confident my ability to do this. My ‘everything goes well’ goal was to finish under 30 minutes. I knew this would be tough to make happen, but I would be very happy with myself if I succeeded. As we were lining up I got towards the back of the start area as I wanted to not get in any speedy peoples way. In hindsight, I probably should have moved up towards the middle, but live and learn.

The gun went off, and we were off. Not really. After walking for a while, I finally reached the start line, and was slowly able to start jogging. The first 1/2 mile of the course had us on both sides of the street, after which we funneled into just two lanes of traffic. During this time I was bobbing and weaving around all the walkers and people going slower than me. I hit the 1 mile mark around 10:30 and was beginning to get a little worried about my dream time, however, I just kept my pace nice and steady.

Around 1.5 miles in, I noticed a guy wearing a Country Music Marathon shirt, and I decided to stick with him a while. We had a little conversation as we went, and pushed each other up the one big hill on the course. I was feeling good so picked it up a little and left him about mile 2. The last mile or so of the course is down Peachtree Street (the opposite direction we’ll be going for Peachtree 10k) and I knew I had to keep a steady clip to get under 30. I had “walked” the course the day before (using Google Street View of course, like a good geek) so I knew about how far was left based on streets I saw (and my Garmin of course). As I kept getting closer, I kept picking up my pace – 9:00 min/mile, 8:30 min/mile, 8:00 min/mile. I finally saw the finish line and broke into a dead sprint. My watch time had me at 29:45!!! I had somehow made it under the time. The only question was whether the official time would have me under 30:00 as well. Later that day they sent out an email with the results, and I was under 30:00 officially too.

After grabbing some of the free food afterward, I slowly made my way back to MARTA and back home. There was no rest for the weary though. That Monday, I started up on the Hal Higdon 10K training plan to get ready for Peachtree.