I know most of you have been sitting at your computers all day waiting for the results from my race this morning. Did I do it? Did I meet my goal of 25 minutes for the 5K this morning.

Well here are the official results from the Nashville Striders website:

FEMALE AGE GROUP: 25 – 29

PLACE O'ALL NAME AGE GUN TIME CHIP TIME PACE

1 167 —————- 27 23:36 23:33 7:36
2 206 —————- 27 25:25 24:44 7:59
3 215 JAMIE IVEY 29 25:14 25:09 8:07

WOW! I just went online to check the “official” results and realized that I placed THIRD in my age group. Yeah for me! So surprised and so proud. Yes my time was 25:09 so we'll just say I met my goal for the day.

This next part is just for runners, so if you are not and don't care about running you can close your screen now b/c this will not interest you.

Here we go ….. I am TERRIBLE at pacing myself. TERRIBLE. The gun goes off and I sprint out of there like I'm running a 400. I know not to do this, but I have a hard time not staying up with the pace. If lots of people are passing me I want to run with them. It is competitiveness and pride all together. My goal was to run between 8:00 and 8:10 min miles. My first mile was a 7:42 – WHAT THE HECK WAS I THINKING! That killed me not only physically but mentally as well. My second mile I was at 16:20 so you see how I slowed down tremendously then I hit the finish (3.2 miles) at 25:09. I STRONGLY believe that if I could pace myself better I could run stronger throughout the whole race and finish stronger and then acheive a better time. Any advice? I want a GPS watch so that I can know my mileage and pace at any time, but they all start at about $200 and I don't have that much money saved up yet. Until then, what can I do.

Also another question for you runners …. I ran a 7:42 mile today and when I train I am usually never under 9:20. Am I slacking? Should I be picking up the pace? I have a 10K in two weeks and if I do what I did today on my first mile I will NEVER make it to the end. My end goal is a half on 9/22 and personally I don't think I'll be as ready as I was in March. Oh well, this is life and I must run.

Thanks for your advice!