Hurricanes, 5Ks, and Training

First off, I can't start without writing about how blessed I feel that my friends, family, and I all seem to have made it through the Frankenstorm (AKA Hurricane Sandy) in one piece.  Aside from loosing a bunch a food in my freezer and spending 36 hours without power, I really can't complain.  I've been watching stories of the total devastation and my heart breaks for those who are suffering right now.

On Saturday I did a 5K just before I went out to go fight the crowds and do my Sandy prep.  After my last showing, needless to say I was nervous.  In fact I was so nervous, I started my run keeper clock about 10 seconds before the start and then held the phone tightly in my hand for the duration of the race.

I'm finding that the start of the race is usually pretty crazy.  After the whole tripping people debacle from last time, I came into this race much more prepared.  Trainer Jeff even went through some "pre-race" strategy, so for once it didn't bother me when oodles of people seemed to be leaving me in the dust.  In fact, I even called out to one of the others in my running group to tell him that he was going to fast and continued to let him run on ahead.

I did the first two miles at a pretty slow pace, but strangely enough, I still managed to beat my time goals.  I even had to keep mentally telling myself to slow down.  I had some trouble at the end of mile two, but that was more because this group of girls were starting to get tired and taking up the entire path.  After waiting for one of them to drop off I took the opportunity to pass them.  I even started to pick up my pace a little once I hit the third mile, but I still didn't want to push it two hard, because I knew what was coming.

I don't know what it is about people who design race courses, but what kind of sadist freak would put a hill at the end of mile 3?  Well, the people who designed this race of course!   Yup, there was a hill at the end.  Don't even get me started about this, because I think it says a lot about the personality of people that run that we willingly sign up for this form of torture.  All I have to say is thank goodness for Trainer Jeff and thank goodness that I took the time to actually listen and process his advice before the race, because unlike most hill exercises I've done, I miraculously had the energy to get up that darn hill and pass people while doing it.  And as if that wasn't enough, once I hit the mile 3 marker I went into what I considered to be an all out sprint to get to that finish line.  Now I don't think I ran as though zombies were chasing me or anything, and in the scheme of things I probably wasn't running that fast.  Although if you take into consideration that in April I couldn't have run a tenth of a mile without falling over in an asthmatic coughing fit, this was pretty darn good.  All in all I finished in 33:47 which was a PR for me.  Yes, this was still the bottom third of all finishers, but I made progress for me.  That is all I'm looking for.

Now I officially feel like a real runner.  I can't say that I'm a hard core runner yet.  I scoffed at someone this week for suggesting that "us runners train in all sorts of weather conditions" when discussing how I would be planning my workouts around Hurricane Sandy.  Yes, I can say I like running, but I do not like it enough to go get blown around in 60 mph winds during a torrential downpour.  Alas I don't think I'll ever become crazy enough to like anything that much.  Though I should probably be careful, if anyone would have told me a year ago that I would run this much, I would have called them crazy.

Tomorrow I'll be getting back in the swing and preparing for the Trenton 10k.  I have eight more days to go.  On the one hand, I'm nervous, because I've never run six miles without stopping before.  Of courseI think there's not so much to be nervous about, because I know I can make it at least half way.  Once you get far you have no choice but to just keep going.

On that note, I wish you all the best! Thanks for reading!