Weekend Wrap Up Extrordinaire!

A good weekend was had by all, with (perhaps) the exception of my stomach who was VERY sad after being overloaded with yummy birthday goodies. URGH. (it seemed worth it at the time to eat oysters, sweetbreads, a slab of pan seared flounder, a lemon buttermilk tartlet, a slab of cheese, (and later...) pumpkin whoopie pies, fondue, mushroom risotto ball things, Martha Stewart style beef stroganoff, and so on and so forth.) What can you do??

Needless to say when I woke up pre-race on Saturday I was a little icky. (and I had not even consumed half of said items yet.) Again, WHAT can you do?! I took a few pepto, ate some boring toast, force fed myself a yogurt and was on the fast track to a full recovery.

It was a perfect day for a race! Sunny, low 40's and windy (it is always windy.) I had very different expectations than the last time I 5K'd for a few reasons. Let's review, shall we? (and here shall end my Epic Blogging Week-ish. NO idea how ANY of you manage to pull off a whole month of this!)

-I 5K best if I take it VERY easy leading up to the race. Like, a 6 mile week. THAT didn't happen as the weather was too good to pass up on making quality mileage. STRIKE ONE!

-The race was all on dirt and grass, a medium that I don't run on much. STRIKE TWO!

-Speed work. NOT! STRIKE THREE!

Regardless I had come to the conclusion that I should enjoy myself, run as well as I could on that day (what a novel concept) and know that a PR was not a reasnable goal.

I only have positive things to say about how the race went and considering my typical struggle with the 5K distance (I hate sprinting) and my tendency to run the last mile in like 47 minutes, AND the feeling I usually get that I wish to DIE this is very good indeed. I ran with brutal and honest consistency. (thnks gps) However, the race was NOT brutal and I never wished to lie down and wait for the paramedics even though I was running much faster than I have been able to manage in practice. Even though it was a very small race I passed 10 or so people in the last mile (which accounts for more than 10% of the runners!) The course was a teensy bit long according to the ever honest GPS but that's cool- better long that short so it "counts"!

The one tricky thing about this race was the FOUR hairpin turn-arounds. I found that no matter how I prepared for the little buggers there was NO way to keep a good pace around them. Given the fact that I had the chance to do them FOUR times I tried a variety of things, none of which worked. SLOW. SLOW!

And YES, I (along with everyone) was soundly beated by the State Champ, a skinny, leggy little kid who has legit skills. He runs in the manner of a gazelle, barely skimming the ground as he runs 5 minute miles with barely a modicum of effort. Little asshole....!

In conclusion, to finish in 24:08 was just fine, I won my age division (proving it was, indeed, a very small race) and was thr 4th or 5th place woman. I had to skedaddle before the official results were in but I'm pretty close on the final results!

So, from here I have another 5K in mid-December that I am running with a friend then it will be winter, 2012 and we'll see where the road takes me!