My friends and loved will know this about me...that I sometimes have unreasonable expectations of myself when it comes to racing. They accept that about me because I have been known to throw a temper tantrum after a bad race (I'm working on this). The Mentor Flag Day 5K was one of these instances. It was a last minute decision to sign up and I wasn't really trained. I know what you're thinking...train for a 5K...who needs to do that? It should be easy right? That is what I thought too! Considering I had just started running again two weeks before and hadn't run more than 2 miles I somehow did not think I would stand the chance of bombing this race. In fact, I thought I might even be able to win if the super fast chicks stayed home. I thought I could pull out a 21 or 22 minutes easy. I thought wrong.
The race starts downhill and I mean downhill! So my first mile was 6:03! Just a wee bit more than the 6:45 I was aiming for. So by mile 2 I was pooped out and took a little break. Back to it and holy crap was it hot and hilly that last mile. Clearly I had underestimated this little 5K. I walked a couple more times that last mile and figure I easily lost 2+ minutes because of it. I was not a happy girl at the finish when I looked up and saw 23:57. Yuck! Not a bad time really but I was certainly capable of the 21 or 22 I had hoped for had my race went better. So I was mad and wanting to leave.
Steve on the other hand had a great race of 19:36...a personal best for him. I didn't think there was anyway I would place but thought he might so we stuck around for the rewards, which took a while. He placed third in his age group and amazingly I took first in my age group. The winning female times were 20-22 minute range. So while I should've been happy I even placed I was mad at myself for having a bad race. This is just me. I knew I could have done better.
Another one in the books. Lesson learned. The training continues and I hope to get my endurance back soon and to learn to be a little easier on myself.
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