It's good to be back

Well, the last time I got on here I wasn't in such a great mood. I was still injured and frustrated with my lack of progress toward getting better. Since then much has changed. I finally got things figured out thanks to Dr. Mathews A.R.T. and some patient help from Tommy at BRC. I figured out that I was over-pronating just a little bit so to patch things up I had to switch my trainers up and I now train in a combination of the Adidas Adapt and the Adizero Tempo. This training shoe switch has made all the difference for me and I have been training solid for 5 weeks now. Unfortunately after losing a month my fitness isn't where I wanted it to be and my motivation was suffering. There is of course only one solution to that problem, get in a race.

RACE REPORT:

The first race I decided to hop in was the Boulder Distance Classic on April 23. I went up there because I knew that there was likely to be some good competition and getting my @$$ handed to me is a great motivator. I ran the 5k and surprised myself a bit. The weather was pretty awful with wind and snow but I scrapped my way to a 15:58. Although this isn't a blazing time I discovered that I had more fitness than I had thought and gave me some hope. If you look in the results my official time is listed as 16:08 which is a total load. In fact discussing times with fellow racers I discovered that everyone's time was slower than what they actually ran. I was even told that this was common with the timers that this particular race employs. Well, I just want to go on record and say that this is crap. Give people the times they run and nothing else. This should be a no brainer when it comes to running. Overall I would recommend this race but just be ready to time yourself.

The next race I did was May 1, the Cherry Creek Sneak. I hadn't planned to return to this race after last year but it just seemed to fit my training well and offered the opportunity to get in some good work. Like a crazy man I entered both the 5k and the 5 mile. The 5k was first and it went about as well as I could ask. I snapped my winless streak at 17 months since last victory running 15:43 to win by a few seconds. I was very pleased with this because not only did I run faster than the week prior but I did it with gas left in the tank. I didn't totally sell out for time as I knew the 5 mile was just an hour away. After the win in the 5k I was really relaxed for the 5 mile. You never know how the legs will respond as part of a double so really there is nothing to lose. Although I was never in the race to win as 1st and 2nd place took off early I got in a nice group for 3-6th. This group was all together until around the 3.5 mile mark. This point in the course turns uphill and feeling like I still had the legs I made a move and no one in the group could fully respond. Jay did a nice job of going after me but luckily for me the last mile has a lot of turns and this allowed me to keep him away. I couldn't believe that I still had legs at the end and was really surprised when I saw the finish time of 26:14. I hadn't figured I would be able to double back under 26:30 so I was quite pleased. It feels good race again and success is also a nice motivator. I'm not totally sure what is next on the menu for me but I've got the fire back so I'm sure it won't be too long.