I ran my second race this morning, the 11th Annual Bartlett Parks & Recreation Valentine’s Day 5k. I’ve run the 5k distance plenty of times since graduating from the Couch to 5k program, but it seems like a completely different animal when I’m running an honest-to-goodness race.

I was nervous and excited the night before the race, and I had a case of pre-race jitters all morning long, but when I got out on the course I calmed down quite a bit. I kept up a nice steady pace and had just enough juice left at the end to really pick up some speed and charge across the finish line.

I haven’t gotten back my official time yet, but the Nike+ iPod says I ran the race in 31′33″, a pace of just over 10′ per mile, beating my time in my last 5k race by more than 3 minutes! It was an exciting run, a good, solid 5k time, and a great experience.

Update: Official results are in!  My official time was 31′30”, very close to my Nike+ recorded time.  I came in 10th in my age group and 126th overall!  Not bad for a former couch potato, eh?