Y5K #12

This was another exciting week of running (has it really been 12 weeks since I started tracking all of this?), featuring my 2nd 5K of the year, this time running with family in Grantsville on the 4th of July.

• Monday: Had originally planned to run right after work, but when my car's thermometer said "95" on the drive home, I decided to put my run off until it was a little cooler out. Ended up going around 9, and while it was cooler, it was also pretty dark for most of my run.  And the road wasn't super well-lit. Hmm...  Anyway, I did my first 5/1 jog/walk split, and, because the training plan only says to do 4 sets, I actually ran less than when I was doing 5 sets of the 1/4.5 walk/jog splits.  So I ended up doing about 2.75 miles (forgot to note exactly where I turned around) in about 34 minutes.  Had some of my typical lower back pains, but nothing too terrible.

• Went to Cherry Hill on Wednesday and Raging Waters Seven Peaks Salt Lake on Thursday, and I felt okay about resting a bit the week before the upcoming 5K.

• Saturday: Decided I ought to do...something to stay ready for my race on Monday, so I decided to just do a shorter loop around the neighborhood and still do 5 minute sets of jogging and see where that got me. I ended up doing 3 5-minute sets with a minute of jogging in between and then walked the rest of the way home. Ended up doing just about 2.5 miles in 29 minutes (which includes the 5 minutes of warm-up walking and about 7 minutes of cool-down walking.

• Monday: Got up bright and early (6:45) to head over to the Ray Barrus Memorial 5K, Grantsville's pre-parade race.  They drove us up to the starting line in a couple school buses. The first mile and a half was all downhill and then pretty flat up until all but the last quarter mile or so.  I ran all of the first mile, then took a 1-minute walk break while I drank a small cup of water from a water station.  Then I jogged the rest of the way down to main street and walked another minute there. Told myself I'd jog another 5 minute set before I walked again. Did that, and then told myself I could go a little further, so I did. (That seems to be my best strategy for lengthening my running sets: tell myself I'll run to a certain time or spot, and then once I get there, come up with something else to try for).  Walked one more minute and then jogged the rest of the way to the finish line.  So in total, I walked 3 minutes. My final time was something around 28:40.  They had a clock at the end, but they'd moved it from where I expected it to be and I didn't see at the end. Some guy was calling out times, but I still had my headphones on.  I figured they'd have the times all written down or something, but they didn't.  I DO know that I finished 148th overall. :)  They gave out awards by age category, and there were also categories for "larger" runners (Mens = "Clydesdales", over 200 pounds, Womens = "Athena", over 150).  My mom took 3rd in her age category. George took 3rd in the Clydesdales, and Natalie took 1st place in the Athena category, despite having had a heavy wooden table dropped on her toe last week, and not having had much time to train what with moving to El Paso and all. 

All in all, definitely a good week of running, even with skipping one run in the middle of the week. I was just happy to improve on my time from the last race and to feel like I'm getting closer to being able to run a full 3.2 miles without walking.  Guess I'm going to have to keep working at this running thing for a little while longer. Still feeling a little sore today from yesterday's race. Guess we'll see how I'm feeling Wednesday. Might be worth taking a day or two of just walking to recover a bit.