Road to Marathon: First 5K Race

One of the things I wanted to share with you was my first race since starting my marathon training. It was a 5K on Halloween. I have been training since June with a Couch to Marathon program that is for one whole year which I printed from https://www.digitalrunning.com/couch-to-marathon-training-plan/.  I don't have a particular Marathon in mind because when I decided to start training I knew that there would be things that would interfere with my training (i.e., projects, stake activities, menstruation, holidays, vacations, injuries, etc.). And sure enough I have my first major setback with an injury. I have been training mainly on our home treadmill, thanks to my sister has let us use it because her place is too small, and at a school running track. So my feet and legs were used to that. My last couple of weeks of training, before my injury, I was venturing out to run on my long runs (4m, 5m & 6m) on our local city green way trail that has some paved areas and crosswalks.  But I injured myself  while trying to rush home. I ran from the school track to the parking lot and must have stepped wrong in that transition because later on I felt some initial pain in the ankle area.  I kept one training for another 2 weeks and ignored the pain. While running it was fine but once I stopped, on my rest days it was painful when I would stand and start walking on that foot.  Also I accompanied my daughter to her class field trip to Centennial Farms in Orange County and by the end of the day my foot was swollen.  So I stopped running a for about 3 to 4 weeks hoping that by not running I would get better, but it didn't. Finally I went to the doctor to have get an x-ray just to make sure and it is fine. Since I had already registered for the Whittier Spooktacular I eased back into running the week of that race. I am glad to say that I ran almost the entire race. There were a few areas that were uphill where I just needed to walk it. Uphills are not my friends.  My time for the race was 40:11. Not too bad since when I was running pre-injury my mile time was 12:00. So because of the uphill and not wanting to put too much pressure on my foot I raced listening to my body and my goal was to only run it, not win it, as my kids thought that I might (yeah right!). Here is my runner's medal.

My next goal is to run a 10K hopefully January or February