After much hemming and hawing, and no great motivation to race lately, I finally found something I felt like doing this month. I'm going to head down to Gateway Canyons Resort and run the Winter Warmup 5K, which I ran last year. This is a perfect race when I'm not primarily focused on shorter distance stuff-there were maybe 20 runners last year, and the small crowd was very laid back before and after, but competitive during the event.
There are door prizes out the wazoo, as well. I think I walked away from this with a nice pair of running socks a year ago, and the race directors really strive for that personal touch with this little event. It's nearly always a guarantee that the weather will be nice in Gateway, so I'll just make sure to have adequate layering options and should be good to go. My time last year was about 3:45 off my best 5K road race so it's definitely NOT a PR course-yet another reason I can approach it just wanting to improve upon my time from last year. That shouldn't be tough. I'd been back running after thyroid surgery recovery for only a few weeks and I'm now running nearly double the mileage of a year ago. I was 0 for 3 last year in road 5K's with trying to run sub-23:00, and I think that came from being way too aggressive early on. The 5K is a short race, so there's not much room to save juice for the end-but I think that's what I need to do to some degree.
In the past week, I also set a treadmill mileage and time PR, running 21 miles on Saturday. I know that sounds as much fun as getting teeth pulled without anesthesia, but my kids had a full schedule of alternating activities that day, and the rain was just pouring down. It was an easy choice to stay home and run on the mill of dread, because then my husband could leave a kid or two at home with me, and not have to drag all four everywhere. Something about soggy, blistered feet wasn't very appealing to me, either. I know I could be racing the marathon in any number of conditions, but I'd rather deal with that on race day, and work on hitting my paces any way possible now.
2 comments:
That sounds like a really cool race, small field, competitive people and great prizes. Wishing you a speedy race and looking forward to the report!
Good luck on your race...it's nice to have something other than the marathon to focus on even if it is only for a little while. I also tip my hat to you for running 21 miles on the treadmill!!! Wow, I don't think I'd be as dedicated a runner if I didn't live in Florida!
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