I ran the 9th Annual Texas Med 5K this morning, the second time in my adult life I’ve run an actual race. My previous attempt was the 2005 Run Like Hell 5K in Pittsburgh. There was also an aborted attempt at the USA Fit 5K in January because running in freezing rain is no fun.

My unofficial finish time this morning was 35:47;still awaiting official chip time results. My official chip time was 35:36. While slow, this is almost exactly the pace I’d planned to run (slightly faster, actually)—in other words, not so fast that I’m going to hate myself at the end. I pushed really hard and ran a 31:09 back in 2005 and…it took me over 5 years to try to run another race again.

This is the third time since my year-round-soccer-playing days I’m seriously trying to pick up running as a sport, and I’m hoping I can stick with it this time. Previously I’d approached running as primarily a competitive/social activity, almost always running with a (usually super-fit) friend. Now, I’m pursuing it as a solo/health activity and this, along with changes to my training philosophy and better management of my exercise-induced asthma will make the difference.

See, I’ve never really liked running as an activity in and of itself and only enjoyed it when it was mixed in with a soccer or Ultimate Frisbee match. But I’ve always felt I should enjoy running. And furthermore, I’ve always felt that I should be a fast runner—lingering wishful thinking from my tween years when I really was the fastest girl in my class. And so when I would try to run before, I would always push too hard, too fast, it would be miserable, and I would quit at the first major obstacle or disruption in my training routine.

Now, I’m only running for me. I will be fine running slow, and I will not run in conditions that make me miserable (like freezing rain) or push until I hit a wall. The goal is long-term consistency for health and fitness, not to force my body into my half-cocked idea of what it should be able to do.

So this morning I aimed to run 12-minute miles, which is a pace I can sustain comfortably over 5K. I had enough left in the tank to pick up the pace considerably at the very end and finish without being exhausted.

And it was fun! I’ll be signing up for another one soon.