Knoxville Halloween 5K

After running the Knoxville Marathon 4-Person Relay, back in April, I signed up for a summer 2024 run club. To be honest, I was not as consistent with my running schedule over the summer. Between work travel and family visits, it was hard to stick to a schedule. Also, the weekend we were scheduled to run the “run club” race I was at a conference in London.

So, I felt like I needed to find a race to help me continue training through the Fall. The Knoxville Halloween 5K seemed like a fun race and it also worked with my schedule. As usual, on race day I felt nervous. But, I showed up and ran. It must have been the excitement because I maintained the best pace I have so far and shaved 2-minutes from my usual 5K completion time. Also, it was definitely a lot of fun! 👻

I am now searching for my next race! Until then, I just continue training! Run Eni Run 🏃🏽‍♀️

Knoxville Marathon 4-Person Relay

Back in January my run club started putting together teams for the Knoxville Marathon 4-person relay race. The shorter leg of the relay was a distance that I had never ran before and that I honestly I did not know I could train for between January and April. I was hesitant but I contacted the organizer and told them that I was more of 5K runner but that if they needed someone to do the shortest leg of the relay race that I could try my best.

When the roster of the 4 different relay teams was posted online, I saw my name in it! My immediate reaction was: Well, damn I guess I am running in the relay race!

It has been really challenging training for the race. There is so much that happens during February and March! I honestly never really got a chance to run the full distance of my relay leg during training. So, technically race day was my first time running the full distance. I was super excited to do this with all the other teams in my run club but also nervous. I wanted to be able to run the full distance and finish in decent shape.

Perhaps it was (a) runners high, (b) getting to run through downtown Knoxville, or (c) that I was running with a fellow run club friend (from one of the other relay teams), but that was such an amazing experience! The first mile is always the hardest, but once I was past that I was in the zone!

Run Club

I have a little note in my phone in which I have personal goals. One of my goals was to get into a regular workout routine. Another goal in my list was to meet more people in Knoxville. I really want to connect more to my local community. This may sound crazy but even thought I lived in Tampa for 9 years, I really did not feel connected to my local community until the last two years.

In early May, I came across a post on social media about a run club in Knoxville. I had recently started going to the gym (Working Out) but was really excited about meeting people in Knoxville and running together. So I reached out to the contact person for the Run Club and after giving it some thought decided to sign up.

We had a Run Club get together the first day to go over the training plan(s) and the goal at the end was to run in a race with 5K and 10K options. That first meeting felt like the first day of class. Some of the runners already knew each other and some were completely new to group like me. After the initial meeting, I felt pretty good. Our run coach was super encouraging about each of us doing our running journey and that made me feel good. I am definitely not a fast runner and I did not want to be in an environment in which I felt like I had to compete with others.

So this is the way it worked out:

We chose the plan that we wanted to do during the 8 weeks of run club. The plan included a run schedule during the week for each of the 8 weeks. For example: Week 1 would include 3 runs during the week with a specific numbers of miles or length of time. In some cases, for me (in the most basic plan), it included intervals of walking and running.
Our run club has an online community and we have fun activities to help us share our progress. Eventually, the use of the online social community turn into us just simply sharing out selfies or fun stories just cus! The online community is also were our coach would communicate with us. I did have to rejoin a social media platform that I had left last year in order to be part of Run Club. I was not thrilled about it, but turns out that I am literally just using that platform for that specific purpose so it not that bad.
On Saturdays, we got together for a group run. We were all running at a different pace so we were not really on a pack but we would all be on the same trail. We would stretch together before our runs and stretch together at the very end once we were all back to home base. Some Saturdays we also did breakfast afterwards!
At the end of the 8 weeks, we were scheduled to run a race together. Unfortunately, I could not make the race because I arrive back from a trip super late the night before the race. It just was not meant to be. I did do the 5K on my own a few days later and felt super proud to do it despite missing the “official” race.

What I have learned in this process is that I am so happy I had an “running action plan” to take on this goal. I have taken on running in the past and I experienced a great deal of pain due to chin splints (pushing myself way too hard). Doing running intervals really help me pace myself and avoid pain. Of course, I was going from zero running to running intervals to running distances so there was still some aches and pains, but more due to the use of muscles that had not been used in a while.

Also, I learner that there are lots of hills in my neighborhood! So I started doing some running in my neighborhood and some running at the gym on the treadmill. Last, but not least, music matters. I need a good playlist!