Tough weekend

Friday night, I did an upper body lifting workout, figuring it wouldn't affect my race on Saturday morning. I got to bed early and got up early Saturday for the race. I really had no idea what to expect in the race. I'd done some recent quarters at 7:30 pace, but no more than 8 per workout, and no long runs. I thought I could go under 25:00, but I wasn't positive, and I wasn't sure whether I could simply sneak under that time or perhaps run in the 23s.

I had felt a little bit sick on Friday, but by Saturday morning, I was feeling fine, except for the anxiety of racing a 5K. The race was small and started with two laps on a dirt track. As we left the track, I was in 11th place overall, and even though this was a small race, there were many more runners behind me than in front of me. Regretfully, I would not pass one runner the rest of the race, but others would pass me.

According to my Forerunner, my first 3 miles were 7:34 (OK), 8:01 (not so good), and 8:14 (clearly a lack of fitness), and then just over a minute to the finish. My Forerunner measured the course at 3.14 miles, which explains the slow time after the 3rd mile split. I did notice on the course that I hit the 1 mile marker at 1.03 on the Forerunner and the 2 mile marker at 2.03. So, I may have meandered a bit in the first mile or perhaps the Forerunner was wrong, or perhaps the course was a bit long.

I ended up at 24:52, basically right at an 8:00 pace for the race. And, it was really hard. My stride wasn't perfect, but it was better than it's been recently. One good sign, as far as I'm concerned, is that the hamstring tendon attachment point was just fine. The belly of the hamstring muscle was sore after the race, but not the injury point.

The results aren't posted yet, but I know the overall winner was in my age group.

I headed home after getting some breakfast, ready to watch the Penn State vs. Ohio State game. Ohio State simply killed Penn State, making the race only the second most painful part of my day.

On Sunday, given the beautiful weather, we moved firewood into the garage for the winter - more than 3 cords of wood. We have a little bit more to move, but after almost 3 hours, we'd had enough and called it a day.

After moving the wood, I practiced my guitar for a while, but it was really difficult. My hands and forearms were so beat from the wood stacking that I was really struggling with the song I'm learning right now - the Grateful Dead's Round and Round, which uses all barre chords, which require precision and some strength. I'll work on it again tonight.

Tonight is a full-body lifting workout, although given our weather forecast, I wonder if I should just run instead. Today might be the last day of the year where I could run in shorts.