Always Try

4 mile bike ride around the neighborhood; my legs are super-tired!

a.m.: 6.5 miles. River Heights Elementary Loop. Slog miles, feeling like I got hit by a train.

lunch: 4.5 miles. USU track, 6 x 200 w/200 jog; 33(!), 37, 35, 37, 37, 36. Firemen out walking on the track, in lane 1... they should know that WALKING in lane 1 is a FIRE HAZARD.

p.m.: 45 minutes, core & stretching. Feeling like a hippo.

a.m.: 8 miles. Mountain Lion (a.k.a. Basement) Loop, I let the rumors scare me today. Might be my first single-digit day in a while.

p.m.: 42 mile bike ride. Smithfield-Trenton-Benson with Holly and Carrie. Got in a little over my head with this one! I am not a fit biker and Holly and Carrie are 1/2 Ironman athletes.

Took a 15-minute ice bath. Still shivering...

12 miles. Hollow Road tempo. 1 mile warm-up then, 2 x 3 miles with 1 mile jog in between. Splits: 6:14, 6:22, 6:21 & 6:16, 6:22, 6:07. Originally planned on more miles in the tempo but was pretty worn-out after riding for 2.5 hours yesterday. Now I'm worried I should have slowed it down today and made it longer so it was more marathon specific. Hopefully there was some training benefit, I'm just not convinced my fitness is where it needs to be.

Off to get a deep-tissue massage now and I think I'm more nervous for that than the marathon!

8 miles. Super-easy recovery.

6 miles. Mile 22 Loop. Six miles seemed really long today, hopefully my legs get some life back in them soon. And I'd like the spring weather to come back.

Didn't really know what to expect today. I think the last time I ran a 5k was about 5 years ago. I have never done a marathon "tune-up" 5k the week before a race, so I was a little nervous about doing something dumb and hurting myself. Fortunately everything is still in tact and feeling good.

Mile 1 went out fast, as expected. A really fast girl was there so it was good for me to have someone to pace off of for a bit. A SUPER fast guy was there who would have helped me PR in the 400m! (I didn't pace off of him.) We started about 100 meters behind the 1 Mile fun run so we had to do some weaving through traffic while manipulating a gravel-covered turn. All skin stayed gravel free! Fast Girl took off past me at about 0.5 miles so I just hung back because my garmin was telling me I was running 5:43. A pace I was sure I wouldn't sustain through the race. At about mile 1 I passed Fast Girl with a huge concern that it would come back to haunt me.

We made a hair-pin turn at about mile 1.1 and I looked up to only see hill. Oh boy, mile 2 was going to be fun. And it was...not very much fun. Luckily there were some guys in front of me that I could focus on as we trudged up the hill. I just focused on one at a time as I was able to get by them. Tried to squeeze out a "Nice Work!" but I'm sure all they heard were huge gasps of air. This mile greatly discouraged me because I could hardly hold a 6:30 pace and it was a lot of work. I kinda want to call the hill a mountain to make myself feel better!

Finally at about mile 2 the hill gave us some relief as we turned on to only a slight incline now. That lasted another 0.2 or so and then we got some flat ground. I regained my composure and settled back into a manageable pace, but still not the pace I was hoping for. One more turn and then we were home free to the finish. This downhill was nice, but not as steep as the uphill-go figure! I felt really controlled and comfortable so I probably should have pushed the pace a little, but I just don't know how to race a 5k! Came through the finish in 18:32, which is a PR as far as I know. Not quite what I was thinking, but I can't be upset about it.

Splits: 5:49, 6:30, 5:50 (for last 1.1).