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Saturday, February 28, 2015

Rock, Recovery, and Race

Phoenix 1/2 Marathon Race Review

I am writing this fast and quick so I can move on.   Back to the grind tomorrow.

Ah, where do I start with this one?  Not a great past 2 weeks for me.  President's Day (Monday) I was out on a "recovery" run and a rock happened to be misplaced on the trail :) and I tripped badly....like trip to urgent care with x-rays badly.

It crushed me.  I know, I know - - are you kidding me your head could have split open? No Broken bones?  You are lucky!  Right, Right - but I knew the next 2 weeks would be mentally draining.  And they were.  Non stop rehab.  Laser therapy, pool running 2x a day, painful massage (tear invoking), and writing the ABC's with my ankle 10x a day - I will never think about the alphabet the same way again (for years it brought images of Big Bird and Grover, now it will forever be sprained ankles).

Miraculously, I was given the clearance to run this week - and I knew I had lost fitness - just crushing because of a stupid mistake.  Of all years when you need all the stars aligned it bummed me - and knowing what a bunch of teammates are going through  - made me feel selfish to even think that.

Wednesday we decided to "green light" it after nailing "WOW"  Workout Wednesday :).  So now 2 days till race day was foreign to me, I am so used to getting focused a week prior, visualizing the course, talking race strategy, and planning splits.  Now I was just.....well happy to be running it....except well yea with a cold :(  I can't tell you the last time I have been sick with a cold, like 4th grade? The kind where your head weighs 50 lbs and my sinuses made me look like a walrus.  Sweet.

So I spent the 2 days getting refocused and doing all  my pre race routine tactics to get in mode. Including windexing the crap out of  everything - terrible nervous anxiety habit  - with a tissue in my other hand, sneezing every spray.  Classic.

This was an early one, started at 6:30 am - which involved a 4am wake up call.  I actually slept like a log because my head was so heavy to hold up anyway.  Had my almond butter and bread, did my hip routine, and headed to the race.

After a 3 mile warm-up, I was feeling really good.  And that was the peak of the day.

Just never got into a groove.  Goal had been 6:15 pace, and I didn't hit 6:15 ONCE, ended up 1:24:11 I think, 3rd place AG.  6:25 pace.  Gross.

The good news, is teammates, Ariana WON it, Amy, got 2nd, Nat got 2nd in AG, I got 3rd in AG.  We all were Top 10 overall, and represented SDP well.


If I am honest,  I am more worried about mentally bouncing back from this one, never good to go backwards.  It bites.

But, no use looking backward, the sidewalk ended - time to start a new path to 2:43.  First things first this week is about getting the ankle back to 100%, Building back my base again, and looking forward to just training for a month.  3 races in 1.5 months has me a little mentally drained.

Thank god for teammates, they make the rollercoaster lows a little more bearable.

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