Race Day!

I’ve bored both of you who read this with the details of my right calf/leg issues lately and thought I should share some good news on that front:

The cool thing about my shirt is that on the back is a map of Pre's Trail in Alton Baker Park. Unfortunately forgot to get a picture of that.

I ran in my first race since Thanksgiving (didn’t really race that one) today, the Spectrum-Health Irish Jig 5k. Wasn’t shooting for a PR or anything…in fact my goals were to:

1) Run fairly even spits (8:57, 9:10, 8:54, 0:58 for 27:59:20 according to my chip, I had 28:00 on my FR 305 – mile two had some rolling hills and I had some people issues)

B) Make it through the race without my leg hurting = check! It is a little sore-ish now, but nothing that is going hang around long term.

So overall it was a good morning. Unfortunately for T, we left the house at 7:50 a.m. and it was probably 25F and she isn’t a big fan of early Saturday mornings and cold weather. But, she was there for me, and she even looked somewhat happy.

Start Rant:
Those of you who are reading this and run, or think you might start keep this in mind. When you sign up for a race, unless you plan on your finishing time being under 20 mins DO NOT START AT THE FRONT OF THE RACE. Even more so, if you are planning on walking the event START IN THE BACK. I am really self-conscious about being slow in races and as a result maybe I start too far back, but there is no way I should be passing people walking between 0.75-1.0 miles of a 5k when I’m running a 9:00 pace. You were too far forward. Move to the back.
End Rant.

So those were my people issues.

I can honestly say that I feel like I lifted a huge weight off myself when I decided to drop to the HM at the Pig. Leg has felt better, I’ve gotten some good runs in, and I’m generally feeling pretty good. Now I just need to stick with it as life gets busier again with baseball starting to play home games this week.

I’ve found a website that I’m going to start linking to for the two of you reading to see my training log. It will be easier for me to put the info there and link to it than to try and cut/paste it here.

Off to drink beer – it is St. Patrick’s Day afterall!