I forget when it was, maybe two months ago, when Ryan said he felt like running. I’d been running on and off at the gym, or mixing it into my weekly workout schedule here and there. But I never felt like a particularly accomplished runner. Nor did I really enjoy it, unless I was listening to Major Lazer or running while traveling (my favorite travel memories involve running for some reason).

Anyways, to be supportive I got the Ease into 5k iPhone app, which I thought sounded suspiciously like a knockoff of Couch to 5k (turns out it’s made by the same developers). It gets you going by mixing in running + walking. Some time passed, and I felt like I became a more consistent runner. Still, I didn’t feel the fire. So after a month of running I suggested that we do a race. We signed up for the Giants Race (benefiting Project Open Hand), which I picked because finishing the last leg in AT&T Stadium sounded awesome. Also, garlic fries! Lou Seal!

I thought about blogging about my 5k training, but to be honest I didn’t really do anything all that spectacular. Just ran 3-4 times a week, and did whatever the app told me to.

I wasn’t set to finish the app by the time of our race, so I felt nervous. But while we were in Santa Cruz (the week before the race), we stumbled onto the 10K Wharf to Wharf race. We ran with the 50,000+ crowd for about three miles and then broke off. I realized then that our 5k would be just fine.

 

As part of our swag bag they gave us cool shirts, but also these really scary bobbleheads.

I won’t bore you with the details of my race, but I will say that running in a mob of 8,000 men women children and strollers was a HOT MESS. I was walking/dodging strollers for the first half of the race at least. They had corrals for the different paces, but it wasn’t enforced at all (hello strollers and kids in the sub 7 minute mile section???).

All in all, it was fairly interesting. Look how happy I look crossing the finish line?

 

I was totally listening to Blurred Lines.

Yea, I’m kinda tempted to get the first one on a mug.

Afterwards we got beers and hung out.

 

And then the results came in later that day (33:05 minutes, 10:40 pace). I feel pretty good about finishing 1500th out of 8,000 people (even though that is hard for my brain to visualize). I think Ryan was 3 minutes faster, and 800th. Wild the difference a few minutes can make.

Toying around with the idea of doing a 10k, although I’m not really sure if I want to. Because that would take actual training. :p