catherine's running efforts

I didn't run at all last week. A couple times I got all ready to go and then decided I didn't want to. We found a place to move to in Provo, though, and I got a bunch of my stuff packed up. 

So today's run probably felt harder than it would have if I hadn't taken last week off. At the gym, 9:30 pace, 2% incline.  

Some speedwork with awesome Toby. She's so consistent. And tough. She kept getting faster while I kept getting slower. 5 laps with a half lap in between (this was nice because yesterday when she said 400s I had it in my mind that that was 2 laps), and some running before and after. 1:27, 1:30, 1:29, 1:31, 1:36 for the laps. Everything else was nice and slow. 

Another fun run with Toby. Plus it's great to be all done and showered by 6:30. 

Eric drove me to meet her because I was afraid of the dark, and then we did a nice out-and-back. 4.43 miles for me.  10:03, 10:10, 9:12, 9:29, 9:29 for the 0.43. 

My hamstrings, upper quads, and inner thighs are sore from yesterday. But absolutely no knee pain. Best.  

Today's hopefully the peak of the soreness from Tuesday's run. Three mile loop from my house after sleeping in until 7:00. :) 8:52, 9:43, 9:06. 

To and from the post office. 10:07 (with books), 9:13 (without books)

There was a woman there shipping something to China and the post clerk was being kind of jerky to her because of her accent. Then the clerk said, "They don't have powdered milk in China?" (I guess because she thought it was weird that the girl was spending 60+ to send this little package.) And the girl (girl? woman? probably early 20s) said that she was sending it to someone whose 11-month-old is really small because the mom wasn't making enough milk and in China they don't have medicine to increase a mom's milk supply like they do here, so she was just hoping that what she was sending would help. Yeah, I cried a little bit before it was my turn in line. 

I'll write a report later, but the little story is that I made my goal of a post-pregnancy 5k pr, I should run more if I want to run faster, I was 2nd in my age group (but 6 minutes slower than the person who was 1st), and Eric got beat by a couple of strollers because he and Elliott ran with me. 

*The report that I wrote later:

I was nervous about this race because I wanted to have a post-pregnancy PR (PPPR) even though I totally didn't deserve one. I was pretty consistent this year until knee-gate (*cough* altra-gate *cough*), and then I totally fell off the wagon. I've had weeks in the past few months where I didn't run at all, lots of weeks where I ran just a few miles, and I haven't run more than 22 miles in a week since the end of April. FRB keeps me honest, so this wasn't a "I'm going to PPPR even though I haven't trained because I think I can beat the system." I was just hoping I hadn't regressed. I was up late the night before looking up running stuff, and I found a comment thread on JakeK's FRB about how he would never race in Kinvaras. I had a mini freakout about my shoes, but then Eric reminded me that I'm not the kind of runner where the structure of my shoes is going to really matter. :)

I knew the course pretty well - it passes our house, and I ran it and drove it a few times before the race. The first about .75 is easy, the next about .8 is uphill some, and the rest is a gradual downhill. In my mind it's similar to the BYU 5K course, so I thought it would be fair to shoot for faster than 7:17/mile (what I did at BYU in March).

Usually in a 5K I start too fast and I get this funny feeling in my head and arms and stomach (also happened at Tuesday's track workout with Toby) where I feel like the blood is rushing away and I wish that I had eaten something. So I had a gel about 20 minutes before the race. I didn't get that feeling, but I also didn't start as fast. I knew the hill was coming, so my goal was just to have the first mile under 7:00 (other 5K first miles this past year have been 7:44 (up the BYU hill), 6:51, and 6:59). When we started on the uphill part I was watching my watch and saw that our pace was creeping up. I kept increasing the effort, but I couldn't keep the time down. Our (Eric and Elliott were with me) first mile was 7:12. I knew that we'd hit the downhill before the second mile was over, so I tried to push through and not watch the time until we were going back down. Second mile was 7:31. 

I like thinking about using downhills to rest my lungs and push my legs, so even though we were too slow after the 2nd mile I thought we'd be able to make up some time before the end. We did, but we also didn't pass very many people. We were both surprised at the big group that was with and ahead of us; usually a lot of people start faster than they can sustain, and we pick them off before the end. But we never saw a ton of people that were ahead of us. We did pass the purple shorts girl (Eric called her grape butt) I had picked out to beat early on, but she sprinted at the end and beat us anyway. We didn't ever catch the two stroller guys ahead of us (sorry, Eric). Third mile was 7:02, and the last bit was 7:23 pace. 

So...I'm glad I (barely) made my goal. I'm glad that I have some fall races planned. I'm glad that even though I won't PR at the Des News 10K, I'll still be a lot faster than I was last year. I'm glad that I'm not injured. And I'm glad that I'm happy with where I am and where I can be in the future instead of bummed about where I'm not.