February 12, 2017 | Blacksburg, VA | Time: 27:54 | Busting the rust off my racing legs!
I had taken a couple of weeks off at the beginning of the year to aid in the healing from tendinitis. It had been a slow build back to where I had been pace wise and I’ll still not 100% there but I’ll take this race time!
Mile 1: 8:19
I went out a little too hard and fast. I was eager to see what my legs would do but I forgot about my lungs keeping up. I continued to push forward cruising on the down hills and leaning into the uphills. I felt ok til the end up this mile on a steep uphill climb- that’s when the sidestich started up.
Mile 2: 8:58
I had a massive cramp in my right lung that I couldn’t seem to shake. We went through a nice long downhill and I tried to pick up speed a little but was having a hard time working out the cramp. We turned the corner and a small uphill about did me in and I slowed down massively for a minute or so.
Mile 3: 9:41
As you can see from my pace I never recovered. We moved onto a decently flat stretch of road and then onto the Huckleberry Trail- which is also flat at this point. I could not get my legs to turn over and was still having trouble breathing. I was mentally chanting to myself to just keep putting one foot in front of the other. I was actually surprised I was under 10mins for this mile because I seemed to be crawling.
Final Time: 27:54
So not my best but not my worst either. This was actually in my top 3 of 5K finish times despite how bad I felt toward the end. AND in surprising news I found out later that I placed 3rd in my age group!?! I’ve never won an award for anything so that is pretty darn cool. I don’t have the award yet but hopefully soon and boy you’ll know it because I’ll definitely be Instagramming it. 😀
Moral of the story: Don’t take it out so fast at the beginning. If I had held back some at the start I could have kicked it at the end. And who knows maybe even have been 1st in my age group!
Next 5K on the schedule is in Boston. I hope to be stronger and faster by then. I also hope to be rocking the Oiselle crop.
chasing every adventure 