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March 5, 2006
Was it worth it?
I'm sure that all the other bloggers who ran Stu's today--that's Alison, Caitlin and Mary, who I met for the first time today--will have better stories to tell than I do. I'm also a little stressed out because I didn't get home until about 4pm and I still have a lot of work left.
I woke up a few times last night and noticed that my groin still hurt when I shifted a certain way in bed. (Sometimes things that hurt me when I'm sleeping don't bother me running, oddly.) I tried to stretch some and loosen up before leaving for the race, but I brought my foam roller with me too. It was a good thing since we ended up arriving about an hour and a half before the race started so there was plenty of time to use it!
I ran about a mile and a half to warm-up/test out my hip before the race started with a friend from my club. I also wanted to make sure I wouldn't be too cold in shorts (no way!). My leg felt decent for the short jog and for about 3 miles of the race, but then the constant downhill and uphill caused me to tighten up. I tried to relax and not worry about what pace I was running. (I had a goal of 7:30 miles or a little faster just based on the hilly 16 mile race I ran at that pace in Jan.) Plus the mile markers were screwy, and the wind was annoying at times. (But not as bad as it's been this week.) I felt a little better, leg-wise, by about mile 9. Then it was more of a mental battle. I knew I wasn't running my goal pace and I also knew I felt better running the faster pace six weeks ago than I did running slower today. I also have trouble knowing that I have so many more miles to go in these long races.
But, I did start to gain more confidence in the last 10K and passed a bunch of people who had blown by me earlier. The last hill in the race is infamous and I pretty much was crawling up it, but I expected that. I wasn't completely dead when I finished but I was certainly glad to be done running and go inside and drink lots!! It was actually pretty warm out there in the sun (esp. for me) and I was sooo thirsty the whole time. They only had baby dixie cups of Gatorade and I should definitely have brought my belt and bottle. Oh well. In fact, I'm still thirsty now and I am going to go get something to drink.
I'm not sure how my leg will feel running this week, but I have a feeling I'm going to need to be careful.
Posted by becky at March 5, 2006 9:24 PM