I ran a race, and raced it

I decided to give my racing legs a shot yesterday. First true race effort since I bombed at the Clarksburg Country Run in November, when my injury finally took complete control over my running.

Mind you, I am NOT in any kind of PR shape right now. Building back after time off due to injury is a slow process, at least for me. I ran an 8K yesterday and of course started too fast with the first mile at 6:35, and then slowed down significantly in the in between miles, and then ate as much of the road as fast as I could in the last mile (it was 6:46). My finish time was 34:48 (one second slower than the first time I ran this course in 2007).

By mile 2-1/2 I thought, "This freaking hurts, farck this, I'll just walk." But then I remembered all the tricks of racing and I put them to good use. I ended up passing a couple of people who had passed me earlier on. That always feels good. I focused on people ahead of me and just worked my arss off to close the gap between us, and it helped. A male runner and I ended up passing each other over and over again in the last mile, and that helped! He basically pulled and pushed me to the finish line. He finished a few seconds ahead of me and we both just about collapsed at the finish line from exhaustion.

I gave it my all yesterday and I am very happy about that. Turns out I was 2nd female overall, and 2nd in my age group (first woman in my AG was also the overall female winner). I had run the 1-mile race as a warm up, and literally jogged it. I ended up getting 2nd in my AG for the mile. Hahaha, now that's funny!

Beautiful day, sunny, low 50s, no wind, flat and zippy course, and my husband was there to root for me. Doesn't get better than that. With my warm up and cool down miles, I got in a 9 mile day.

LASTLY: I found out today that Sundays are not part of Lent and that there is no fasting or abstinence to be done on those days. Sooooo... I can play on Facebook on Sundays. :) I think I'll stay away from RWOL for a while though.