turkey trot re-cap

Let me just start with this: Woot Woot! PR, baby!

I’m so thankful for my parents…they are amazing grandparents and willingly took my crazy boys overnight AND cooked the turkey so that hubby and I could have a little date run on Thanksgiving morning.

I’m grateful that the weather was clear and sunny. No rain. BUT…man, oh man, this Southern Cal girl (and the boy too) was not loving the just shy of 40 degrees at start time. Thankful for my Nike Stay Warm Mock Turtle neck and a pair of knit gloves and an old ski headband. Obviously I need to up my game in cold weather running gear. I’m thinking long running tights might be in my future…my capris weren’t quite enough.

But once we started running I felt much better. And actually by mile 2 I was almost too hot. If I had been running the 10k I might have actually had to take the top layer off. Sigh…my body doesn’t like temperature extremes. LOL

The course was the same that we ran on Memorial Day. It has a few hills here and there. In May we both weren’t expecting the hills (even though I had run the course before I hadn’t thought about the hills for some reason). But this time we knew what to expect…so much easier to talk yourself through the mental low points when you know what is coming next.

Let me also remind you that I haven’t really run…without walking…in several months. I took the whole month of October off and November has been all about building back up slowly.

So I hit the pavement with a little bit of trepidation. I decided I would just start running…watching my pace carefully so I wouldn’t over do it. And if my knee balked, I would walk as needed. It was crazy crowded with families, dogs, strollers, walkers, kids, you name it. Don’t get me wrong…I was kind of sad I didn’t pack up the family and do it together. But at the same time…I didn’t. So I wanted to run. Once I dodged a few kids running crazy back and forth, I kind of settled into a rhythm.

At the water station I walked through and started running again as soon as I tossed my cup. My pace was where I was hoping. By about mile 2.5 I had a little bit of mental breakdown…like I needed a break…but really my body didn’t need one. My knee, while cranking out during the first mile was warm and doing fine. But I walked any way. After about 15 seconds I said ‘what am I doing?’ and picked up the pace again. When I looked at my watch and realized I was close to a big PR, I picked it up again. Then I walked. What is it with this mental game. LOL. Finally I picked it back up and booked it to the finish line, emptying my tank.

And my watch said I had a personal record! We waited to see if we could get the official results, but they were having trouble with their printouts so I had to check it out online. And later that day it was official. We both had new PRs for the 5k by over a minute each!

And my knee? No pain…it is kind of sore though. I’ve been very nice to it with stretching, foam rolling and icing. I’m supposed to start ramping it up for my Half Marathon in about three weeks…so I’ll be watching it closely.

But for today…I’m feeling that Runner’s High! LOVE IT!

Kristen