Alas, no PR news to impart today 
Last week’s Nite Moves I was trying to take it easy for my 5k race on Saturday. It was really hard for me to not “race” it, and I kinda did anyway. I think my time was 24:20 or something close to that. I’m not really sure how to train for fast 5k’s, up to this point I think it’s just been a matter of getting fitter = faster. So I wasn’t sure what to do to make my Saturday race a good one – should I run longer runs on Thursday and/or Friday? Speedwork? Well, I ended up doing neither which in retrospect was probably pretty dumb. I just ran 3 miles at recovery pace on Thursday.
Saturday I woke up at 5am to head to Santa Clarita. At least I got there early enough to find a parking spot (there was a huge parade with lots of road closures planned for later in the morning). I did a good 30 minute warmup, some yoga stretching, and some sprints. I don’t think I had quite enough water, but I didn’t want to drink a lot that morning and risk having to pull my car over to pee 20 times. Slightly dehydrated, but I thought over 5k it wouldn’t be a big deal.
I got to the venue around 6:30, and it was still pleasantly cool. As it got closer to time though, the thermometer climbed up to 80 degrees. Bummer. We lined up at the start, listened to a couple classic American rock songs and the anthem, and headed off. Here is my peeve:
“Dear 5k fun runners,
I know you are here with your families to celebrate by doing something athletic. I give you mad props for this, I think it’s awesome that you and your spawn children are running this together. I am amazed at your ability to not warm up or stretch or indeed wear anything remotely close to running apparel. Truly, you are brave. I am glad that you are contributing to the success of this event, and perhaps even starting a new healthy hobby. But if you’re WALKING THE WHOLE COURSE PLEASE LINE UP IN BACK! I know this is a fun run, but getting pushed and elbowed as I try to dodge your walking self 200 meters into the race is NOT fun for me! In the future, please line up near others who will be going the same pace. Thank you, I hope you enjoyed nearly tripping me your run walk.
Sincerely, Jawsome”
End peeve. Did I sound bitchy right there? Probably, but that’s my one and truly my only real pet peeve of other runners. I’m not that fast, so when I’m trying to PR every second counts! And I make sure not to line up right on the starting line either.
So. There I was about 200 meters in, finally wedging my way past the half a dozen walking folks, when I start noticing the heat. “Wow, it’s pretty warm. Not too bad though, running away from the sun.” First mile clicked by in 7:31. Perfect and on pace for a PR. Mile 2: back into the sun. And what’s this? A hill? I thought this course was supposed to be flat?! Grrr. Mile two clicked by in 8:10. Hot and not happy. Mile three and things are just getting hotter. The pavement is radiating heat, but I know I’ll throw up if I go for one of the cups of water. In retrospect I should probably have just dumped it on my head. Oh well. About this time I picked up a follower. You know those other runners who attach themselves to you? I could not shake her. What’s worse, she looked like she was having the time of her life – smiling and waving – while I was approaching heat exhaustion and was probably scaring the spectators with my grimacing expression. Mile 3 I did in 7:59, and I tried really hard to sprint it into the finish. I still could not shake the woman next to me, until she finally dropped back a little. Unfortunately, my brain took that as a cue that the sensible thing to do would be to slow down as well. She passed me in the last 5 meters. Grrr.
What was my time you ask? Did I make my goal of 23:48? Or even beat my PR of 23:53? Nope. I did not. I tied my PR. Who does that? 23:53.
I suppose I should be happy with that since it’s still a good time. Plus it was really hot, and I’m not used to running in heat. I guess I had just expected to do better because this was a flatter course than the nite moves one. Oh well!
To practice what we therapists call the ‘positive reframe’, I thought to myself, “Joselyne, last year at this time you could barely run one mile straight. This year was your base-building year. Next year in Colorado you can join a club and work on getting faster.” Good pep talk. I drank my Jamba Juice and headed home in relatively good spirits. One more Nite Moves this week. I’m still hoping to PR, but I’m not going to pressure myself.
Today I did a nice, easy 6 mile run which included the (not so nice or easy) flight of stairs down to the beach and back.
Happy Running!
Just rolled into Fort Collins after a crazy two weeks of packing, vacation, and moving (driving across country with two yowling cats is NOT my idea of a good time, in case you were wondering).
