Under gray skies, 513 runners took to the street this afternoon for the 61st edition of Pellouailles-Angers, a 15 kilometer race between the two towns. As always, Philipp was there to support me and cheer me on. As one of his brothers was also running (although much faster than I ran), there were lots of in-laws and nieces and nephews along the way, too. It was fun to see them all.
This is the first time I ran a 15k race, so I knew that no matter how I did, I'd set a new PR (personal record). According to my times in training, I figured I'd finish around 1 hour 20 or 25 minutes. I was sure that I wanted to avoid what happened in the Amsterdam Marathon last year ... pushing myself too hard in the middle of the race, and struggling at the end. That can even happen at a shorter distance. So I paid very close attention to my heart rate, and was careful to slow down a little whenever it got too high (and my GPS started beeping at me).
As a runner, it can sometimes be a real challenge to hold back and not allow the excitement and adrenaline -- and fear of finishing well behind your target time -- to make you push beyond your limits. So not only am I happy with my time -- 1:21:17 -- but I'm also happy with my overall performance. At a certain time, I was running alongside two other women, and although we were all at the same speed, they were both huffing and puffing. I was fine. And after a while, I pulled ahead of them and didn't see them again.
It felt great to push myself and sprint in to the finish. As I wrote above, I was proud of how I regulated my performance, and satisfied with my finishing time. And now that I have a PR for the 15k, I'll have to find another race of the same distance ... and break my own record! :)
Here are a few of the pictures Philipp took:
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