Four months ago on the post “Started Running!,” I said I started training for the Gate River Run 15K race in
March. Yes, I finished the race a
couple of weekends ago. I diligently
followed my own schedule, 30-minute run twice a week and one long run once a
week, except for a few weeks.
Luckily, I didn’t get injured during the training, and even finished the
race faster than I expected.
Among all the races I ran, the
Gate River Run was one of the most fun races. The participation of the people in the neighborhoods along
the course was the best I’d ever seen.
They played their own music, sprayed mist for the runners (the morning
was already hot and muggy), and put out “unofficial” tables of all kinds of
food, from donuts, homemade snacks, sausages to beer!
Another thing I was happy about
was a lot of runners were using Jeff Galloway’s Run Walk Run method that I’ve
been using and mentioned in the earlier post. I heard their watches beeping everywhere to alert the runners
to start or stop running. I also used
to use a watch as a timer, but I found a new way. I use an app called IntervalTimer on my smartphone, so I can
listen to music and the timer beeping at the same time. During a few long runs (like one in Savannah), I also used another app called RunKeepr to keep track of mileage and
pace. (Years ago when I was
training for marathons, smartphones and apps were not available, so I had to
buy a GPS watch!) I set it up to
tell me the distance every mile and the pace every half a mile so I can run
consistently on my training pace. The
route is also tracked on the map, so even if you are running in a city you
never visited, you won’t get lost.
After I finished the race, I got
a massage at the finish line from one of the volunteer massage students. I had to wait in a long line, but I was
determined to get a massage, mainly for a personal reason, but partially for a
professional one. The students
were giving sports massage consisting of mostly compressions and
stretching. Woo, how nice it felt!
I didn’t realize that simple long,
deep compressions felt so good. Because
of the massage, I didn’t get sore at all next day!