Cherry Blossom

I’ve been meaning to write this blog all week.

I wanted to type up my own little review of the “Cherry Blossom 15K”. This race being our 6th race in a row since Februrary 14. We (being Chuck, My Mom and me) have been on a streak! It has been fun and I’ve loved the training. Although, the Cherry Blossom managed to kick me in the bootie. I am not sure if it was that race itself, or just a long stint of a lot of running.

Me & my Mom

My girl Jenny and myself ran the Cherry Blossom 15K together last spring. G and Dennis were out there too. It rained and it was cold. We had a good time anyway. I PR’d at 1:24:35. Oh yeah! Chuck was supposed to run his first race ever that day. He didn’t make it because he hurt his leg a few weeks before and ended up on crutches for a week and limped for a month! So Dennis ran as Chuck (is that allowed?). So, since I had participated in the run last year, I figured I knew what to expect….

WRONG…

We showed up to the race. It was colder than I would have like, but pretty with the sun shining, so who can complain? We got there later than we normally do for a race, so we didn’t have long to wait around to start. The race started and Dennis, G, and Jenny had all planned to run out a little faster than I had in mind. So they were gone. I WANTED to PR this year. I really did. I figured I could at even just under a 9 min/mi… not too hard right? A friend of ours, Bug (Kristen) and I planned on running right at the same pace, so we stuck together. OK, so at the beginning of the race, immediately something didn’t feel quite right! We turned right instead of left on Rivioli (unlike last year’s race?) I told Bug, who didn’t run the previous year, that something was weird, but of course we went with it… over hills, down hills, over hills, down hill, over hills, down hills… yeah yuck! Then something else seemed weird. We were hitting mile markers and my Garmin wasn’t agreeing with them. We were quite a bit ahead of what the marker signs said and with each mile it got worse and worse??? I was confused and it was kinda messing with my mind! I was thinking that maybe they were just placed wrong and that the last mile would be really short. We finally got up to where the course said 8 miles and I knew where I was, Bug and I realized something was crazy, but we didn’t fret. I just told her I’d mark a lap on my Garmin when we hit 9.3, that way we’d know our time for the real race distance. Once we hit 9.3 my Garmin said 1:24:01, which yes is a PR. But I’m not really counting it cause it wasn’t official… The last mile (yeah, the race ended up being 10.2ish miles) was rough for me. I had never run past the 9.3 distance. My quads felt like jelly and I was out of juice. Bug and I finished at 1:32:22.

Bug & Kat..................................

I was tight that whole night. I soaked my feet and rested most of the afternoon. The next morning. OH MY! My quads were so sore and my right hip was sore. I felt like I’d been hit by a car.

Sunday we went out the GA Children’s Home trail and ran an easy 55 minute run. It felt good to stretch out and take it easy. Guess What? I didn’t fall this time! Yeah me. This is Chuck and me running... He's a trail monster. He always does better than us, maybe it's his Indian blood.

Monday at work I was still sore and my hip was still tight. I was reconsidering my goal of running a half marathon in October.

Now I’m feeling good. My hip still has a little something weird going on in there… but it’s not pain. So, I’m ok with that. I’m going to take it easy as far as mileage this week. Since it’s probably going to be raining, I guess that’s a good thing!