I ran the St. Pattys Day 5k today, and it was pretty bad. I started out hard (first mile in 4:45), only to find that the rest of the race was uphill. I was also very tired from the last few weeks of hard training, so after the first mile and a half I was completely spent. A combination of running uphill while your whole body feels terrible translates to a bad race. The pain level was tremendous, and when I finally did finish I felt light headed and dizzy. I am certain that it was the hard training that did this to me. This is the first time that I have fully trained through a race (very hard training at that), and it was not too fun. I do know, however, that with some recovery time, my ability now will be much greater than this past winter. In all relative terms this race was nothing big, and I shouldn't be dissapointed with my time. You can either train hard or race well, and I am definitely training hard. It is then logical that I will not race very well. Once again, this is time for me to build my fitness. The end game is what is important (BB 10k, CU time trials), and I need to put this race into perspective. | 