2nd race of the year

5K time: 26:49 pace: 8:38

I'm not sure what to say except that I was expecting to do a lot better in today's race. I was very optimistic when the race began. I started strong without using too much energy, since the first half was, for the most part, downhill. In fact, my first mile split was 7:45. When I saw that, I was pumped. I kept the pace and passed people while still holding back a bit to save up my energy for the second half of the race. When we came to a steep hill, I slowed down a bit, but not too much. We then turned onto a road that climbed up to pass over the highway a few times. At mile 2, my time was 16:09. I was still optimistic, because at that pace I would beat my PR by a minute and a half. But I slowed down a lot. The terrain was a sustained hill from before the 2-mile mark until the 3-mile mark, and I couldn't step up the pace until the last minute, when the finish line was right in front of me. I didn't do badly, but I was really hoping to beat my record. I came in 6th in my age group and 41st out of the 288 women who ran in the race. (For me this was a big race. There were 554 total participants.) Anyway, it's another experience. One thing I have learned from it is to keep a large supply of band-aids with me. When I took my timing chip from my shoelaces I took the whole shoe off as well to give my pinched toes some room. Unfortunately, the pinching had given me a broken blister that had covered my entire little toe, and once I took the shoe off, I couldn't (nor did I want to) get it back on. So I hobbled around with one foot in a sneaker and the other in a bloody sock (it was quite gross). It was so bad that my dedicated support staff and I did not stay for the awards ceremony. Anyway, it was still a good run. I need to keep running with my friend so I can learn to run at her pace and finally beat that PR!