Friday, August 30, 2013

Running Update and Race Recap

Wow. I've been so horrible about blogging recently! To be honest, part of the reason is that I'm afraid to jinx my training. The last time I wrote about how great training was going, I wound up with a stress fracture only a few weeks later. So, instead of jinxing myself, I just haven't been writing. But, I have been running & training!

It took me a LONG time to feel like I could run well again after my stress fracture. I started back up in May but spent several weeks dealing with the mental aspect of running again after having a cracked tibia. I was EXTRA cautious and paranoid about EVERYTHING and it took me a month to make it up to 5 miles. After that first month, I started to relax a bit, but still kept my mileage very low and didn't add in any speedwork until August. I started working with my coaches again in July and they came up with a very conservative plan for me that I felt comfortable with and with their help, FINALLY feel like I'm almost back to where I was before injury.

For the last few weeks, I've really been questioning how in/out of shape I am, so this past Wednesday, I ran the last 5k of the Al Goldstein Summer Speed Series to find out. I ran this race back in June as my first race post injury so couldn't wait to see how far I had come since then. I went back and forth about how to run this race- with a watch, without a watch, with tape over my watch, etc and ended up wearing my watch (so I would have splits afterwards) but I put tape over it so I could run by feel. I'm proud of myself for actually keeping the tape on the whole time and not peeking (although I almost asked a guy I was running next to what pace we were running!) but it turns out that I'm not sure I like running "naked"! I honestly think that I would have pushed harder at certain points if I had known my pace. I'm glad I tried it out once, and this was a good race to do it, but I can't say that I'll be doing it again anytime soon. It didn't result in an instant PR, like it seems to for many, and had me questioning if I was giving it enough effort in the middle of the race, which probably means I wasn't!

My splits were:
7:12
6:50 (first sub 7 mile in I-don't-know-how-long!)
7:06
6:28 (for 0.1)

Total time: 21:43 (7:00 pace)

I was secretly sort of hoping to run 6:59 pace for this race and am pretty sure I would have made that happen if my watch hadn't been covered. But, I'm still happy with only being 12 seconds off my 5k after only a month with speedwork! I ended up being the 5th female and 2nd in my age group. Should have stuck around for my mini medal, but I didn't think there was a chance that I was anywhere near placing!



Up next is the NYRR Autism 4 mile race on September 7, but I'll run that as a tempo portion of a long run, then Philly Rock 'n' Roll Half in a little over 2 weeks. I'm still not exactly sure what I'm going to do with this race. I'm not going to all-out race it, but I think I would like to run it comfortably hard to see where I stand for the Wineglass Half in October (goal race). I'm really excited for Wineglass weekend- it's going to be an awesome girls trip and 4 people I'm coaching are running/racing it as well! I may be more excited to see how they do than how I do!.....

Oh! And I'm also running the 5th Ave Mile. Last year I BOMBED on pacing myself in this race. When I first looked down at my Garmin, it said 4:xx. Um no, I cannot sustain that pace for a mile, so this year I'm hoping I can run it smarter and PR!

Random picture that does not belong in this post but needed a picture
to spruce it up! Nicole's dog Molly, Allison, Beth and me. Photo credit: Nicole

Do you race with or without a watch? Have you set a PR without a watch? What races are you running this Fall? What's your goal race?