Selma Law Enforcement 5k Run

Friday saw me feeling a bit tired and sore, so I wasn’t sure how I’d feel trying to run a fast 5k today.  The course is nice and flat as a pancake, so if someone’s feeling good, it’s a PR course for sure.  This is something to consider if you’re looking for such a course, because they use the same route for a Railroad 5k sometime in the Fall. 

In today’s race, I figured out pretty quickly that I wouldn’t be running that fast.  I’m not super-sure about my mile one split, but I think I was out in around 6 minutes, which is fairly typical.  Unfortunatley, I was more tired and lacking snap than ideal.  In fact, I spent more time thinking about my races coming up next week (Aquathon & Tri Nats) than I did about the race I was doing.  This is never a sign of a strong performance, if you were wondering.  Strong performances require focus on what one is doing at the moment– not what one will be doing a week later. 

Which isn’t a major problem in this case, because what I’ll be doing in a week is a lot higher priority than today’s “tune up” run.  As a result, I picked a level of suffering that I figured would provide the training effect I was seeking but wouldn’t take too much out of me to ensure I’m ready to go next Thursday.  This level of suffering wasn’t terribly deep.  Thing is, in a 5k run, the level of suffering must increase throughout the race in order to race it well and split evenly.  If one adheres obstinately to a particular level of suffering, the pace just gets slower and slower.  So I flawlessly executed my obstinate adherence to the acceptable level of suffering and got slower and slower throughout the run.  Hey.  It’s a plan and I executed to the T.

I wished the fellows well that passed me on the final straight and urged them to finish strong.  They urged me to do the same.  I smiled and waved and thought about next week.  Then I noticed someone stop running about 100 meters ahead.  Oops.  There’s the finish!  I picked it up a little bit and finished in 19:18.

Now, it’s not easy to run 19:18 when one is tired, so I was breathing hard and everything, but I’m just saying I want to pick my battles.  I went pretty hard Wednesday night at the Time Trial.  Dang.  All this intense stuff is…INTENSE.  And it takes very little time to complete, so I feel like I’m doing nothing but I’m tired from it. I’m debating whether I’m digging this particular scene or not.  One thing’s for sure– I’m totally chilling until next Thursday.  I should be ready to do pretty OK by then.  I’ve done the work, after all.  Hay is in the barn, as they say.

Oh yeah, race is a first year race and pretty small, so I was able to win a big ol’ trophy for first place girl.  Here’s a pic of the top 3 female finishers and our bling:

More photos here.

Results .

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