PR on a Thursday night

I tried out an evening 5K this week for the first time, the Jim Gibbons Leukemia Research 5K. I don't always do well in the evening when it comes to running. This is prime nap time in my life, so, I wondered if I would be sluggish. I had new awesome shoes though: Brooks PureConnect. They make me feel pretty badass. I've been running in Vibrams lately and love them, but I don't think I want to run 26.2 in them this fall, and my other shoes are just too cushioned. I feel like I'm running on a cloud and I don't like it. I love how connected to the ground I feel in Vibrams and the Brooks give me a similar feeling. And they look freakin' cool.

Anyway, I don't like 5K much. They hurt. I tend to run like a bat out of hell (for me that's anything in the 8:15-9:15 pace range). I feel the need to run almost as fast as I can since it's such a short distance. The problem is I'm not good at keep that pace for longer than 1.5 more or so. I get that far and start thinking, "I hate this. This is hard. This sucks." I also have an issue with my right hip right now and I'm sore all the time. That didn't help. I forgot my headphones too and I hate hearing people huff and puff while running. It just annoys me and makes me anxious for some reason.

I walked a water stop, which annoyed me, but I needed to. I walked again at another point. I thought, "It's only 3.1 miles, why am I walking??"I was annoyed with myself. It was just hot and muggy and I was going fast and didn't feel that well. So, 30 seconds of walking helped a little.

I picked it up even faster the last 200 meters or so. I had a chance at being under 28:30. I wasn't sure what my PR was, but I was fairly sure it was near that time.

So, the race ended. I had a beer, listened to some cover band play Matchbox 20 songs, and made my way home.

This morning I saw the results: PR by 3 seconds. Awesome! 28:30! 9:11 pace. Cool. I was 22 out of 66 in my age group. Anytime I'm not in the bottom half of my age group I'm pretty thrilled.

Cool. First PR in anything in over a year. Rock on!