Tuesday, December 20, 2011

My 5k Race Recap

So much is going on this week but I wanted to give a race recap! Let me start by saying:

OUCH OUCH OUCH OUCH!

My calves were so sore. I mean sorer than they have ever been ever in my whole entire life. So sore I felt like maybe I had torn the calf muscles on both legs. What happened? What went wrong? Or right?

I decided to wear my New Balance Minimus shoes. No biggie, or at least I thought. I have been wearing these quite a bit during my shorter runs and a 5k is short, right? Right. It is short but this particular 5k was short and FAST! At least faster than I ever run in training, which is the way it is supposed to be. But it made for some sore calves. I could hardly walk on Sunday and Monday. Just today I am at a point where I am only a little bit still sore. On Monday I frantically dug through my Workout Basket, a basket where I keep samples that are mailed to me to sample or given to me in race goodie bags. I knew I had to have something to relieve my sore, aching, dying calves. Sure enough, at the very bottom buried under GU, Chomps, and some random Butt Cream was the glorious samples packs of Biofreeze ! Hallelujah!

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Holy Moley! Can you say Miracle Worker? This stuff is the bomb dot com! No kidding and no exaggeration! I am going to replace my 15 samples with a huge, industrial size. No kidding. After applying it this morning I was like a new woman with new legs......

Anyway, back to the race day. Not only did I wear my minimus shoes I wore my CEP socks. I don't usually run in these. For me it is often annoying and given the pain I had in my calves after the race I am not convinced the CEP Compression socks did much good? Weird. I also wore my 2XU Compression shorts under my running skirt. Strangely enough I had no pain in my quads, glutes or hamstrings. So verdict is: continue to run in my minimus shoes, love the compression shorts, take or leave the CEP Socks.

The race started rather abruptly. We were all gathered and they sang the National Anthem and then GO! Wow. It was really sudden and no one was really ready. Everyone was still hand over heart and facing the flag. It was chaos for a second until everyone figured out what was going on. I fumbled with my headphones, hit start on iMapMyRun app, and hit start on Garmin. That's right, I ran with both my Garmin and iMApMyRun iPhone app. Overkill? Ya think? Yeah, me too. I decided to go ahead with the Garmin and vowed to myself that I would not not look at excessively. I surprised myself and actually only looked when I heard the mile beeps.

My first mile was decent, considering the first mile had two significant hill climbs. I logged mile one at 7:53.79. The first 1/4 miles was killer. Who starts a race uphill like that? Check out the course elevation below....



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The second mile had a nice up, some down but this mile ended up being my slowest mile at 8:02.24....What? That is nuts, my slowest mile was 8:02.24? Who am I?

My third mile was my fastest, but no wonder, check out the nice, long downhill. I finished the third mile at 7:46.45. My Garmin logged the race as 3.46 miles and my final .46 average pace was a 5:35 min/mile pace. I WAS DYING AND FLYING....but it was a significant down hill and I used it to my full advantage. There was a glob of women in front of me and one had her hair down and flopping all over the place. Seriously, she might as well have put a target on her back saying Pass Me. There is no way I was going to let her beat me. Nope, no beauty runner with beautiful, flowing, unkempt and untamed hair was going to beat me. Not. Over. My. Dead. Panting, Breathless. Body.

I ran. I ran faster. I knew the final 300 yards can be detrimental to some. From experience I knew that if you get passed by someone who looks weak or like they are struggling you can muster the mental power to overcome, to come back and beat them. BUT if you get passed by someone who's poise and body language says "I eat runners like you in the last 300 yards for post race protein replacement." It defeats them. It sucks their mental ability to fight. They give up. You win.

I passed the glob of women and it was a brutal fight. They were not going down easy. I had to dominate.

Here is a snap of the result times for the glob: I was 24:33, then there was 24:34, 24:35 and 24:42....it was close!

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I knew it wasn't good enough for an AG placement (since the age group was 30-39. I HATE that, it makes the groups too big) but it was a nice PR for me. My previous 5k PR is 25:46 which means my new PR of 24:33 was more than a minute faster! What's next? I'm thinking I may train for another 5k PR. That sounds fun. Kind of..... I

was 8th in my age group and the 21st female out of 347. The first female came in at 20:23....that is pretty darn fast. That is like High School X-Country days fast...I got 90th overall out of 589 total male and female. That is crazy!

Here I am, coming to the finnish....

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The cheering squad:

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There you have it....my race recap!


19 comments:

  1. You rocked that race!! Love that whole part of you passing the women! That's what makes me push harder, when I have a target in front of me and I have to pick them off and then the next.

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  2. Love that the hair flying woman is in the pic!

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  3. Biofreeze is no joke! I had that stuff during my relay race last Spring and it works miracles. I've spent months trying to find a place that sells it, but I might have to break down and get some online before my training starts again.

    My $0.02 - The shoes were the culprit. I'd bet your calves are not fully adjusted to going so fast in those shoes. A 5k at your level shouldn't do much as far as causing muscle issues aside from some tightness that goes away during the day.

    Either way though, nice job with the PR! I love 5ks that hit a hill early - means you can fly up the hill with your energy and let gravity pull you down it later on when you're tiring.

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  4. Way. To. Go! Me and Mel are going to train for a 5k in March.

    BTW-I wish we'd been running together. Maybe you should come visit for the Million Inch Run. No? Whyever not?

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  5. Wow, amazing run! I think I see the flowy hair beauty runner behind you.. haha!

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  6. nice run! way to push it and not let those women pass you!

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  7. AWESOME!!! That is a great time, too bad you didn't place in your AG. Next time!! :)

    I LOVE biofreeze, saved me during marathon training :)

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  8. i'm tired/sore just from reading that! congrats on a strong run :) also, good to know about the biofreeze, they always come in expo bags and I've never given them a chance!

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  9. A one minute PR? That's fantastic. Can you imagine if you trained for a 5k? Holy moly. And your race picture is awesome.

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  10. I loved reading this post, what inspiration!!

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  11. Biofreeze is seriously the shiz.

    About your CEP socks... have you worn them any SINCE the race? I wonder if they would help you more if you use them for recovery rather than while you're racing? And I wonder if maybe you would be totally crippled if you hadn't worn them? lol

    Congratulations on a killer race!

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  12. Congrats!!! Great competitive spirit!! Glad the calves are improving!

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  13. awesome! And is that crazy hair behind you? How can someone run like that it would drive me batty!

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  14. You are such a ROCKSTAR!!! Good work... You look amazing in that photo.. Miss you tons.. Happy Holidays friend.

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  15. I did a 3 mile run in my CEP compression sleeves one day and my calves were ON FIRE! I can't run in them! I LOVE wearing them after long runs for sure though! Congrats on your PR!!

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  16. Running and keeping your body in shape is great! You also need to be careful to protect your body from injuries and you can always wear compression sleeves when you are running next time. Cheers

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You're pretty much awesome!!

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