A proper race finally

The benefit of having Igor the Horrible truck meant that I got the weekend off and finally got to run a state RRCA Grand Prix race, yay!!!!!!!  All the extra driving I've been doing means I haven't seen some of my friends since last November.  And this happened to be a race put on by my running club which meant no long drive to get to it--added bonus :D.


The Spring Fling 5k is notorious for always having bad weather and this year was no exception....woke up at 5 am to a wicked bad thunderstorm that eventually gave way to a mild drizzle by race start.  Combine that with cool temps and that's my ideal racing weather.......However, since I've done practically no training since the Malta 1/2 Marathon last month I was not expecting this to be a fast-ish 5k for me.  One might ask just how bad my training has been......well, nothing the first week of March, 14.63 the 2nd week, and 10.61 miles the third.......yeah, not an ideal month of training although I did manage to get in a 27 mile cycle ride last Sunday on an absolutely gorgeous day.

Oh, yeah back to the race...........hugs galore, my warm-up consisted of running up and down the hill from where I parked up to the field house, none of which I managed to record on my garmin, lol.  No expectations except to run as hard as I was capable of  and to finish the race.  Last year's time was 24:04 and I didn't expect to even come close to that. 

 First mile felt easy--don't they always?--but I ended up running it in 7:20. 2nd mile started feeling a little difficult but we do have an uphill towards the end of the course....mile 3 was just over 8 minutes, grrr. Definitely not a negative split on this one but I don't think I've ever managed a 5k that was...during this time I'm not bothering to look at my garmin because I didn't want to put any more pressure than what I already was feeling.  

The course had a different entry this year to the track due to the construction and it made me a bit nervous since it was so damp.  We had a downhill section on a narrow sidewalk area followed by a left turn at the bottom.  Thankfully it wasn't slick like I feared but I'd already had slowed myself down by the time I found that out.  The next two photos are of that area of concern.

Much to my surprise, my finishing time was not far off of last year's at all.  My garmin time showed 24:12 but chip time ended being 24:06.  A whopping 2 seconds slower than last year's chip time!!!!!  I'm very pleased with that!!!!!!!!! I'm sure y'all are laughing about me being happy at the slower time but I really didn't think I would do so well with the way my training has been progressing (lack of training more like), not to mention the lingering back spasms that Igor the Horrible had left me with, grrrr. My time was good enough for 16th place female and 1st in the 40-44 age group.  

So, back in the game? Perhaps not but it does give me some hope that I can bust my 23:25 5k pr sometime this year and I am motivated to get back to proper training.  Managed to eke out 6.38 miles this morning, 3 of which I was able to do with 11 of my club members and most importantly friends :-).  Here's hoping that I can also run the 10k next weekend.