Sunday, October 9, 2011

Back 2 Back

I ran a race yesterday (as noted in the previous post) and while I had fun, I was not completely thrilled with how I did. I now see that setting a PR is always good and that, as I keep working, the times will continue to drop.

Late last night, I decided to run another race today because I still wanted to race and it was very close to home. I wasn't too sore from the day before, but I rarely even run at all on consecutive days. To race two days in a row was a bit silly, but I didn't care. I wasn't going to be worried about times, I just wanted to race.

The Run at the Farm 5k was a hilly, cross country course at a local park. While I didn't hurt, my strides didn't seem to have much power behind them. Running on the grass and up hills didn't help matters. I ran a bit behind the main pack to start and gradually, the best runners pulled away and left me alone in the no-mans land I always seem to end up in, way behind the leaders, but somewhere between the good runners and the next tier of runners. About half way into the race, another runner caught up to me and we ran together most of the rest of the race. Another one caught us with about 3/4 mile left and we all ran together in a pack towards the finish. They both passed me with about 1/4 mile left but I made a charge at the end, caught one but didn't quite close the gap with the other. I ended up 2nd in my age group and had a nice time.

I don't plan to race twice in one weekend again, and probably won't run consecutive weekends on a normal basis. As you would guess, I ran best when I was adequately rested and it gets expensive to run these races. It was fun this weekend though. :)

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