Happy New Year!
A few weeks ago I found the Los Gatos Resolution Run on Active.com. I was real excited because the venue is much prettier than the Bay Lands run that I was originally planning to do. I figured that if we went to a friend’s New Year’s Eve invitation, we wouldn’t stay very long, like maybe midnight at the latest. Well, I got to sleep at about 3 am, and not so gloriously got up at 8am for the 9am start time.
I was glad that I only drank a couple of glasses of wine and that the New Years celebration meal was gluten free and mostly vegetables. I grabbed purified water, warm green tea, and about 20 of those crazy whittled down things called “Baby Carrots” (with the more nutritious part now missing) and headed out the door. I was actually feeling pretty darn good on 5 hours sleep once I consumed some water, tea and a few carrots!
As the race starts promptly at 9am, I’m thinking this 5K (3.2 mile run) is going to be wonderful! And …. It’s highly unlikely that I’ll come in dead last as there was a 20-30 something year old fellow on crutches with one leg in a cast participating in the event – hard core! I saw him again coming up at about half way up the hill as I was descending. What determination.
At the gun shot I stick with my plan. Run at about 95 beat per minute pace (though I didn’t bring my metronome), with no joint discomfort. I’m not wearing a watch, heart rate monitor or music. I’m wearing my light no-support New Balance 100 shoes. My goal is to be in the moment, enjoying life in the scenery, and the fact that I’m in life while running and listening to my body. My word for 2010 is “grounded.”
Everything is wonderful, rolling mounds of earth (in what turns out to be the first mile or so), beautiful weather – overcast and a slight drizzle. My kind of running weather, of course my mantra now is that all weather is my kind of running weather ;-) By the 1-mile marker (and there were no more markers by the way) we running on a packed dirt/gravel war-width path on a fairly gradual up hill that just keeps going. The incline grows into a bit of a roar and then an OMG at the halfway point turn around.
On the way back down I over hear a woman who’s wearing a GPS watch say that she and her friends have just traveled 3.7 miles on the run. What? I must have misunderstood as I went by them. This is a 5K, 3.2 mile run. I am pretty tired but I’m sure it’s just because the hill beat me up. I have not run any hills yet since taking up running again. Yes, I did some walking to either get the pain in my knee or foot to calm down (especially on the downhill), and because I’m not in shape yet for running hills.
I finished the event and happy that I did the event, though a bit curious that I was so tired. But I just attributed my fatigue and mild soreness to only having 5 hours of sleep and only a few carrots to eat. I took it easy on the down hill as running down hill was how I originally injured my right knee a hundred or so years ago. I noticed discomfort in the right knee and left foot a few times during the run which I was able to ease every time by talking my body into various aspects of Chi or Pose Running.
I grabbed some sliced orange and a bottle of water while my partner chatted with some folks, one of whom told her that we ran 5 miles! No wonder! A 5K is the most I’ve run since learning Chi and Pose Running. I crack myself up!
I entered my event in www.MapMyRun.com and also confirmed the 240ft. 2-mile assent and 2-mile descent. Yahoo! Our plan is to run this course again in 2-3 weeks. Next stop a 10K in February! Unless I accidentally sign up for a 10 miler!
Comments