🏃‍♀️ My first 10k, nothing like I expected

I finished my first 10k last Sunday. 1 hour 12 minutes, right in the middle of the pack. I trained for about 4 months, mostly alone before sunrise, and I thought I knew what to expect. I expected the legs to be the problem. They were sore, sure, but that wasn't the hard part. The hard part was my own head, somewhere around the 7 kilometre mark. Out of nowhere I started bargaining. Just walk for a minute. Nobody will notice. The route was full of people by then, clapping and shouting, and that is what saved me. A stranger on the side held out a cup of water and shouted my number. Another runner passed me and said "come on, 3 more" like we'd known each other for years. I had practised alone with headphones. Nobody clapped at 6 am on my street. So I didn't know that a crowd could physically carry you. It sounds silly but it does. At the finish I didn't cry or jump. I just stood there holding a banana, confused. Then I got a medal that was lighter than I expected and I loved it anyway. The real feeling came 2 days later, when I walked into work and my legs hurt. I kept smiling at nothing on the stairs. I think I'm hooked. Already looking at the next one. The medal hangs next to the mirror now and nobody is allowed to touch it. I've already signed up for another one in 3 months. My legs have not been told yet.

My knees complained loudly for a full week after my very first attempt at it, nobody had warned me that the soreness peaks two full days later rather than immediately after the run itself finishes properly that same afternoon. Would still do it again without much hesitation, just with considerably more stretching built into the plan beforehand next time around.

Finished mine in a time I was fairly embarrassed by, until a stranger at the finish line pointed out that finishing at all beats every single person who stayed home that morning instead of even trying in the first place.

Trained for four solid months and still nearly walked off around kilometre eight during my own actual first ten k race that cold Sunday morning near the lake, the gap between structured training runs and a real race with genuine nerves involved turned out to be considerably bigger than any app or training plan had properly prepared me for beforehand at all.