When It's All Said And Done...

This week started out being a miserable and difficult week to say the least. Last Wednesday, I decided to give myself a week off from running because my groin pain popped back up. I thought I was over that issue, but my body didn't think so. Within a month of my half marathon at Thanksgiving, panic began to set in thinking I would not be able to get in the mileage I needed in order to run a better half. On top of that, my worry increased fearing I would be "put down" long enough that I wouldn't be able to work on distance for my first full marathon. The last one takes months to prepare for and I'm in the window now.

Secondly was the fact I can't seem to narrow down a program to go by for running a full marathon. I've asked friends, read mag articles and searched online for programs until I've overloaded with data. They're all good but differ enough that I have now become confused. Well, with not being able to run each day, this gave me way too much time to worry about it causing me to become indecisive. There are races I want to participate in during this time and still being new at running distant races, I think I'm going to have to make a decision and choose something "close enough" that I can tweak to my ability, times, and racing wants. I just don't want to over-extend and do something stupid.

With that said...Ginny, I'm going to do what you said and come up with one to fit me. Of course, I'll probably ask you and others a hundred questions during this time! Bear with me because I'm a novice in this realm. ALL of your suggestions and tips have been printed and I read them all the time. They are a great help...thanks, thanks, thanks!!

Thirdly, I've been dealing with a personal problem and hope it will go away. There's nothing I can do about this one...so I worry (or try not to).

During this week off, I will say that I walked and stretched most every day and decided to do a race that we had signed up for earlier on Saturday night. Yep, our first night race. It was really fun. See this post for details.

When Thursday arrived ending my week off, I was so ready to try to run again. I hoped I could get in 3 miles of slow running beginning and ending with a mile of walking. Taking it real easy. Not being much of a walker (I'm trying so hard to do better), my run went this way: .5 mile walking, 5 miles running, ending with .6 mile walking. When I got home I worked on my core, did some weights, and stretched. I felt great-with no pain! A wonderful feeling again. Maybe my "rest" did me some good physically (though it just about killed me mentally, ha). This was going to be my only run this week until Saturday.

We had already signed up to run in the Ellisville Rotary Fest 5k Race at the Howard Tech Park. Kent and I signed up to help out so we were there around 6:40 for the 8:00 race. It was 38 when we left home. It had been windy in the park earlier this week but was still now. Thanks, Phillip, for letting us help out. There's a lot to do at races and we were thankful that we could help.

Getting the trophy table set up.

Today I ran without my Garmin or watch of any kind. I had charged it up but for some reason it must have been bumped on because it had no charge when I turned it on. So I put it back in the truck. For some reason, I felt a sense of freedom I'd not felt in a long time. By the time the race began, the sun had come up and warmed the temps to about 42...PERFECT running weather! I had changed into a long sleeve shirt and though it didn't get "hot", I wished I had left my short sleeved one on. Needless to say, it got changed when the race was over.

I felt so good running. Being a flat course made it an easy one to run faster. I wasn't feeling the slightest bit of pain and ran the best I could considering I had just come off of a week's rest. I sure did want to run harder. Frank and I ran together most of the time and he kept me informed of our pace. At the end of the race, he went on ahead. When I got where I could see the clock, I got soooo excited....I was going to get a PR!! If only I had known I was running so well, I would have sped up some and ran with Frank to get an even better time...one that would have been UNDER 26:00! My time was 26:10 and I am more than thrilled with this. As it turned out, I received the Masters Trophy!!

Neil and me with our Masters Trophies.

Kent received 2nd Place in his age group.

When all was said and done, I helped with the race, ran well, got a PR, received the Masters Trophy and left with NO pain!! What a wonderful day this has been. This week ended up being a great one!