I was doing well for most of the race. On pace to make a 40 minute or better finish. After yesterday's race, I just couldn't seem to do anything to get my legs to turn over any faster than what they were. Just before mile 2.5, I was cheering on some of the 10k (two loops of the course) runners that were lapping me and to avoid and oncoming car, I got too close to the side of the pavement and rolled my ankle over twisting it really badly and ending up on my hands and knees. About a tenth of a mile later, I twisted it again and almost landed on my face. With half a mile to go, why now? It hurt so much just to walk on it. I had taken my gloves off and my right hand had a death grip on them. I couldn't clench my teeth hard enough to make it stop hurting. People passing me left and right. Really fast people. I could hardly even walk. I felt so damned humiliated. I just wanted to sit by the side of the road and hide until it was all over. But, the sooner I could get to my car, the sooner I could go home and rest, so I kept going. I managed to hobble across the finish line and almost started to cry when the guy collecting bib numbers asked if I was finishing the 10k. "10k? Are you nuts? Look at how I'm limping here! I just managed to finish the 5k." As he takes the stub from my bib, he turns to hand it some someone else - "5k, probably the last one by now." Gee, thanks a lot Captain Compassion... The touching thing was that as people were passing me that saw me go down, they were very nice, asking if I was OK and cheering me on. That helped :)

Um, not hurt myself - duh.

Sit down, take my shoe off and hobble over to the food pavilion for a bagel with peanut butter and some oreos. Drank some water and sports drink on the way home.


Bashing my ankle.


For a "No Frills" winter foot race series, this is one of the best running races I've seen. Beautiful spread of food at the end (coffee, tea, cocoa, hot soup, bagels, m&m's, oreos, cheesy poofs, etc). One gatorade/water station of the 5k mark.

After they posted the finish times, my "Official" time was 39:00. That's the time that they use for my points (this is a 4 race points series), so I'll have to confirm that with them...

http://www.pagodapacers.com/

race picture from www.arunningstart.biz