Another race under my belt.

This morning the weather forecast didn’t look good, which I had mixed emotions regarding; I didn’t want my friend to have to reschedule his race, but at the same time I’m pretty sore from my bike crash this weekend and I slept maybe three hours last night. During the day, it cleared up, but a stray shower managed to show up just before the race… Cooling things off, but sending the humidity close to 100%. I don’t have data on that, but I’ve never sweat more in my life. My shoes are still soaked (2.5 hours after the race) as if I had dunked them in a body of water… With sweat. So it turned out to be a pretty gross run.

This race is held on a bicycle commuter path so the start was kind of a rush… I was just talking to friends and then we noticed people starting to roll… I didn’t roll through the start line until about 15 seconds after the race had started. I’d have to catch my competition, but at the same time, anyone I finish near I’ll have actually beaten pretty handily… Kinda fun. Oh you out-kicked me? Well I was actually 15 seconds ahead of you

So it was a sweaty one, but I’ve been feeling better and better, and have been logging some good biking mileage. At the start of the race, I actually had no hamstring pain, but it was still tight/nagging. Around 1.5 miles in, I developed what’s probably the worst stomach cramp I’ve ever had. I slowed a bit, but apparently so did everyone around me… No places lost, but I was closer than ever to throwing in the towel… It was REALLY painful. Around the 3.5 mile mark, some traffic caught me, and the pain seemed to take a back seat or just subside altogether. I worked forward with a couple folks I know, and actually raced against them. It’s kind of neat racing with these folks whom I always see at races, but am usually far ahead of… Hopefully that doesn’t sound elitist… it’s not meant to be… I’m just racing new, but familiar faces, and it’s a fresh feeling.

Anyway, I gave it pretty much all I had by throwing in a few surges [and then dying] towards the end. They took everything out of me, but they also got me a few spots so I guess they worked. Racing is a good portion mental; fly by someone [even when you have nothing in the tank] at the finish and they’re likely to break.

All in all, it turned out to be a good race. My final time was 28:26, which is 7:06 pace, which is a faster pace than the 5k I ran when I first started running again AND on a worse day. Definitely improving… My leg hurts now, but I’m convinced I’m continuing to simply break up scar tissue; I’ve been hurting fairly badly a few days after each race, but afterward feel better than ever. I’m convinced the biking is really helping something too; I feel superb a day or two after a long ride.

1:04 faster than my last 4-Miler [that was 4 miles] , but still 1:45 slower than I ran this same race last year, and that was just an easy training run. Will get there… Will get there…