First race

Ran my first race on May 2nd. A 20 km run around Lake Monona.

Started off too fast - too confident despite not having trained since the end of March. Soon, I was tired enough that I would end up walking not insignificant distances throughout the race. Even with all the walking and the pleasant weather, 20 km was really exhausting. Not sure if it’s a Wisconsin thing, but two pints of beer is what you get after you cross the finish line. Just what you need when you’re dehydrated and exhausted as hell (I’m kidding).

Being my first race, I learned a few valuable lessons. Firstly, wearing two socks to cushion your ankles is a pretty bad idea. All it led to was numbness. I couldn’t feel my left foot by mile 5, so I stopped and took off a sock. And while we’re on the topic of socks, turns out cotton socks aren’t what you want to be wearing for such a long race. Who knew? People who trained well, I guess. Secondly, run with the whole distance in mind. Always. No point sprinting through the first 100m if you’re going to be crawling through your last 100.

Though the race was the longest distance I’ve attempted to “run” so far, the distance wasn’t as discouraging as seeing people way older shuffling past. Not fun. Not fun at all. Finally, after an hour, 53 minutes and 49 seconds, I reached the finish line. Under 2 hours, I’ll take it.

You can view my result here. I wore Bib #750.