West Seattle 5K - Run

My legs have felt incredibly flat ever since Boston. I only did my first speed workout last Wednesday and it was a STRUGGLE. I had a pretty good idea that, despite the flat PR-Friendly course, I would probably not be making any incredible times.

I did have some goals though. They were to work on smart racing and to work on pushing myself past my comfort zone and learn to embrace the hurt a little.

And Jesus Christ in a race car did I have to hurt! It was part of my strategy to go easy right out of the gate but even easy felt HARD. My legs just felt like they had no life in them. I knew I was in for a world of hurt if I wanted to stick to my strategy and finish strong. I was trying to be a little smart about my course positioning so I was hanging tight to the median line (as it was an out and back) but the asphalt was pretty choppy. At one point I did a pretty amazing triple jump type of a move, a hop a skip and a jump to avoid a series of holes. As we approached the turn around, a young man passed me. I said something along the lines of, "Nice work, looking good" and he said "You too. Let's pick it up, stick with me." So I did as long as I could.

We hit the turn around and I effed up big time. Instead of taking it wide and keeping momentum I hugged the corner and was forced to come to a near stop and then about face. Well, that was dumb!! Negative points for me. Of course I lost my new friend as he executed the turn perfectly. Just then, a woman passed me and she was looking great. I had a chance to see the competition coming into the turn and knew that in addition to the new woman, there were 2 in front of me. They were all looking strong and I looked like I was giving birth or something.

We hit the mile 2 mark and I was in somewhat of a rhythm. Everything hurt though and it was a struggle to stay on pace. I was gaining on 2 of the women in front of me. I'm not sure if I was speeding up or they were slowing down. My placing in the race didn't really matter to me but they gave me motivation to keep hanging in there. I really didn't want to pass them with a whole mile left on the course but that's what happened. Once they were behind me I had a renewed sense of urgency.

Things were REALLY hurting now. I was slightly worried the wheels might come off but knew deep down I was fully capable of finishing strong, I just needed to stay mentally tough. I probably looked like a psycho killer by now as I gritted my teeth and pushed hard. There joggers coming towards us on the course kept yelling "second woman!" and "Hang in there you are gaining on number one!"

I saw the finish line and a volunteer yelled out, "Just 6 blocks to go!" My body was screaming at me to stop. Instead, I sped up. I could hear footsteps behind me and I'll be dammed if I am going to get passed with 6 blocks left to go when I am suffering THIS much. I could see the time on the clock and new a PR was 100% out of the question. I gave it every last bit of energy I had and surged to the finish line.

Surprisingly, I was only 9 seconds behind the first place female. I ended up winning a $50 gift card to Salty's (the restaurant) for second overall female. How appropriate!!!!



I feel like I have a few limiters that were out of my control. The first being that I am only a month out from the marathon, so really only 2 weeks into the post race ramp up into training. I'm not entirely sure how much affect that had on me, but I have never suffered this much in a 5K.

The second was the increased training volume in the other two sports and of course, the 40 mile bike ride the day before.

Finally, the controllables:

Execute a better turn at the halfway point
HTFU even more

Went and met J and watched my two friends finish.

Then I got a post race massage mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Then we went and got beers and pho! DOUBLE MMMMMMMMMMMMM

It was a Seattle City Streets open day which means they closed the main drag to car traffic and had a huge street festival of sorts. I participated in a limbo competition where I smoked a gaggle of 7 year olds. Also, there was this crazy bicycle parade. People were wearing some crazy costumes. Also, the mayor was there.


Lots of things!

Yeah, not the best race in a lot of ways but also a really good race in terms of executing the things I wanted to work on.