The Shamrock Shuffle 5k

Lesson Learned.

 

Running a 5k the Saturday at the end of Spring Break is not the best idea.

 

It's not that we've done all that much. It's that we HAVEN'T done all that much. Which means that I have eaten. and snacked. and gone out to eat. and snacked. and so forth. 

 

I ran my usual mid-week training runs, but that's it. No cross-training, no extra anything. Well, except for junk food that is.

 

So this morning, Doug and I got up and drove over to Dublin, Texas to participate in their Shamrock Shuffle 5k. I figured, small town, not a lot of runners. Easy.

 

NO! It was HARD!

 

It was uphill for at least 2 miles and then we turned and ran into the wind coming back.

 

My time was 28:40.9.

 

I finished 4th out of 18 in my age group and 34 overall out of 171 runners. Not that bad, but I had hoped for a better time. My previous race had me at 28:38.6 so officially I was a couple seconds slower. :( 

 

However, interestingly my running app logged this race .10 longer than the last 5k, so my app says I had set a personal record for my pace. I like that, I felt like I pushed it today. And... I ran my first mile in 8:47. That is the fastest mile I have ever run!

 

As I struggle to run faster and longer I have to remind myself that I am less than a year into running and only 6 months into running races. The women I am chasing in races, for the most part, have been running a lot longer than I have. I know this for a fact, I run with them during our training runs almost every Saturday!

And so as I consider today's race, I'm a little disappointed that my official time wasn't an improvement. But I'm motivated to do better next year! Cause yeah, I'm hooked.