Another Week, Another Race

Last week’s training went well. Chuck is still working nights, so it is messing with his workout / running schedule, which in turn messes with mine, since we generally train together. Mostly it is causing a problem for him due to the crazy sleeping schedule from working at night.

So, since he worked Thursday night he was able to be off with me on Friday during the day time. Friday we went out kinda early and ran an easy 3 miles down the road from the apartments. It felt good to run in the springtime weather. It was our first “warm” run so far.

Saturday (poor Chuck on only 3 hours of sleep) we got up and headed to Geico for the 12K. It was a foggy morning, but it was neither hot nor cold… so I wasn’t complaining. I had told Chuck that we were going to run together, since he always accuses me of dusting him. Which is not necessarily true! I have been running a lot longer than him. But I have just recently decided that getting a little faster is something I’d like to do…. I guess I decided that right around the time we started running together. So in my opinion, he is already as good as I am now, and it took me 6 years to get where he got in 6 months. Yes, I’m hatin’!!!! ANYWAY… I told him that I would stay with him for the whole race on Saturday. I wanted to finish together.

See I have this little competitive nature that I like to deny. I told my girl Jenny once “I’m not competitive”… she busted out laughing. But continued to tell me that I am, but not competitive in a mean way, that she thinks I’m generally competitive against myself… I thought about it and I guess that’s right. She said that last March when we were running the Gate River Run together (almost exactly a year ago). I was reflecting on that conversation as I ran the 12K with Chuck on Sat. We both had the MP3 on so there wasn’t any convo to entertain me…. I prefer conversation to music… so I had to keep my mind busy somehow.

During the race I kept a pretty close eye on the Garmin. We were keeping a 9 min/mi pretty steady. I wanted him to keep the pace just to prove to him that he COULD do it. I also had my ulterior motives… I WANTED to be running a little faster maybe. I had no problems staying where he was, and I’m not at all trying to say that I’m so much faster or whatever… I just WANTED to blow out my previous year’s time…. even though I had promised to finish with him. He did manage to keep a 9 – 9.30 min/mi for the majority of the race. He pulled the hills very good, charged them really. I was very proud of him for his 2nd 12K.

I was very happy to finish the race side by side with him seeing as how he IS my running partner. I enjoyed the race overall. It was one of those runs that nothing hurts, all was good, mind and body. Each mile marker just came and went, I wasn’t constantly thinking about wanting the run to be over with. I truly enjoyed the run. This I am thankful for, because had I been trying to PR the run would have been more painful, not such an enjoyable experience.

I learned a lesson at the Geico race:

I realized how much I AM in competition with myself, and that it’s ok not to win! Because, if I lose, I also win. I just have to find out where the victory is.

We finished in 1:09:35. Jenny got 2nd in her age group, Mom got 1st, and I got 2nd!

Here is part of our little group from Byron: Cherry (my mom) G (Robert) Jenny, Dennis, Me, Chuck.

Sunday we went out and ran 4 miles around Eagle Springs. It was HOT. Really only in the mid 70’s, but it was HOT. It’s hard to go from running in the 30’s one weekend to the 70’s the next. Come on, we’re in Georgia… what should I expect?

Monday night I taught my spin class and worked weights for the first time in weeks. Now my chest and arms are killing me. What was I thinking? Next week I will defiantly get back on a regular weight training schedule… anything to avoid the soreness. Ouch.

Last night Chuck and I met up at my runner mommer’s house (Mom’s nickname). She sat with my punkin’ (Shy) while Chuck and I took advantage of daylight savings time and ran outside after work. Oh yeah, how sweet is that! BUT that is where the sweetness ends. Apparently something was dead in my Mom’s neighborhood. Something stinks soooooooo bad and strong. It was absolutely horrible. I’ve never smelled something that made me nauseated. Not only did it stink horribly, but I was trying to run, which sorta kinda requires breathing. This breathing thing was quite undesirable due to the FUNK in the air. I was honestly thinking that someone was dead in a house and rotting (that sounds bad doesn’t it). I’m hoping it’s more like an animal, a large animal? Chuck is a detective and knows what a dead person smells like and he said that it smelled similar... I'm still hoping it's the animal idea. YUCK.

Back to the run… I’m trying to breathe, but not wanting to breathe cause it stinks, not wanting to breath through my mouth, because something that smells so bad has got to have bacterial funk floating in the air right? Just kidding. It took a mile and a half to get out of that neighborhood into another one that didn’t smell bad. I ran the rest of the run pretty good. I averaged a 9.45 min/mi. I enjoyed the run.

I’m in a great mood today. We are leaving to go to Jacksonville on Friday. Oh YEAH! So excited. The Gate River Run 15K – The USATF 15K Championship… running with the bigwigs… well, running quite far behind them anyway. I love the race, it will be my 4th run of it.

The rest of my week, training wise, should be uneventful. Just a treadmill run tonight and then I’ll rest Thur & Fri.