5K in the BK

Tuesday night we did a 5K in Prospect Park for our practice. Our coaches set up a little race for us, and it was really cute. We even had little mini numbers to stick on our shirts.

The name of the race: The Lisa+Luis' 5K in the BK.

Luis brought his fancy camera, and took some pictures.

Here's the group right before the race. Note that it is almost all women.

**Attention single guys**
If you are looking for a girlfriend who likes to run, you should join Team in Training in Brooklyn. It's a really easy way to meet girls.



I haven't done a 5K race in a long time. Since I've started this training, all of our races have been 4 miles or longer. A 5K is 3.1 miles. With all the training, I've definitely gotten faster, and I was really curious what my time would be.

Of course, the end of the course is a really big uphill. The nice things is, I've gotten so used to hills now, so I don't think it really slowed me down too much. So much of the hills is mental. I play games with my mind while running up the hills. I fix my eyes on a point at the top of the hill and just look at that. It really tricks your brain into not realizing how far up you're going.

I decided to try to run this fast, but not quite at 100%. I'm still kind of testing out my injured leg and I don't want to re-injure it.

My very first 5K race was in September 2006 (on a flat course), and it took me 29:00. Tuesday I ran the race in 26:09. That's a full minute faster per mile. Wow.

Here I am finishing!


The best thing about this race for me: NO PAIN! None. I'm cautiously optimistic about this IT Band problem. I'm really hoping the long run this weekend (16-17 miles) will go well.

And here is the group post-race. We got a pretty small turnout this Tuesday. The Saturday group is much bigger.


The coaches gave us little plastic finisher medals and goodybags. They really went all out for this race. It was adorable.


OK, they all said "winner." It's just like in elementary school when you get a trophy for "participation."