Mental Health 5k

It's rare that I'd be satisfied with a 16:42 5k. Charlie predicted last night at dinner that I'd run a 17:45. So at least I ran faster than we thought I could. I wore my STs instead of T4s because I thought my feet would prefer the extra support. By the end of the cool down, I thought I had blisters at the ends of my left toes. Taking my shoes off showed a whole lot of blood. Fortunately it was just a toenail cutting into my toe-- nothing that will prevent me from being able to wear shoes this week.

Tim didn't run the race, but he did run with us. The lady who had the race numbers broke down so most of the field didn't have their bibs. So Tim lined up and no one knew the difference, but he was really in the end of his 22 mile long run. He ran in the pack with me, which I think helped keep the field slow for the first half mile or so. I ran behind people, but someone had such bad BO that I couldn't handle being behind them. After turning onto Kenmore, Rich Saunders and Nick Oltman started to pick it up, so I moved up with them. Our first mile was 5:21 (surprisingly fast, felt terrible). Nick was already behind at that point. Turning onto Sunken I was trying to tuck in behind Rich. Tim went by us like we were standing still despite having 18 miles in his legs already.

I felt like I was barely hanging on at 2 miles in 5:18, and I started to slip back a little. I was already breathing so hard and trying to hide it from Rich, but he was in front of me and probably couldn't tell what was going on. He pulled away a lot over the last half of mile 3... I looked back and saw Nick and worried. Thinking back I probably should have been able to close more, but I hadn't run at all! So a 5:25 third mile was pretty good.

I'm happy with the race. My body ached afterwards, I wanted to throw up, I couldn't breath, and I was bleeding through my shoes. So it was a good day. Bob and I are going to lift later-- that's going to go very poorly I'm sure!