Believe to Achieve

Woke and happened to look up races for today for fun at 6:30am.  And lo and behold a race not even 2 miles from my house and a free one (donations accepted for the troops of course) if no shirt.  Race day registration as well.  So I called Melanie and hey she was already doing it.  Seriously didn't even know about this race.   I also annoyed my husband so much that he couldn't fall back to sleep so he joined me a half hour later, waiting in the freezing rain.  No lie.  There was snow on some parts of the ground and occasional bouts of a downpour.  But when the race started 20 minutes late-- the rain had stopped  : D.  The plan was to just go easy.  But easy was just TOO easy.  This was a very HILLY course.  Awesome.  Loved it all.  I felt great (besides the burning pain in my right hip and calf).  I welcomed the uphill.  I was visualizing conquering UVM's first half of rolling hills and these were very comparable.  I was at a 7:38 pace at first but at a half mile I was just too held back that I picked it up and passed a lot of runner's before the 5k/10k split off.  More people were running the 5k so runners were further between.  I was just enjoying myself climbing the hills.  I did my usual arm swings to the air to stretch and kick backs while running.  And then after passing about 5 guys I did the most stupid thing.  I went off course.  A guy just seconds ahead of me asked me which way to go.  He went straight, I was confused and thought we were already at the cemetery so I went left early which ended up adding on to make it a real 10k.  The course measured short for everyone else (6.0 miles).   I finally realized where I was and knew how to get back on course but when I met up with everyone in the cemetery I had already added on .2 miles and people I had already passed were in front of me.  Oh well.  At least I wasn't going for time today.  It was more like a LT (lactate threshold run).  I tried to catch and pass orange cap dude again and his friend but wasn't wanting to go faster than my 6:30 pace I was doing.  I need to conserve for the big day. A bit before I made the wrong turn I could see Melanie and Jane up ahead in the distance.  Adding on I no longer could see them.  Silly me.  But at least it was the right distance : D.  So 42:28 for 6.2 miles (6:51 pace).  So glad if felt easy even though I could use a normal right leg anytime soon.  I think it is possibly an ovarian cyst pushing in on the nerves in there-- I have had this type of significant pain before down my leg--piriformis like and then after 3-4 days it goes away.  Hope that is not too much info for some of you but it is what women deal with.  I have intense rebound tenderness in the lower right quadrant of my abdomen.  If it gets worse I will check it out further otherwise it is still massaging of the fascia (thanks Rad) for me from my hip to my achilles.  BTW Troy ran it 47:45.  When I cheered he sprinted in.  He looked great!! : D.