Oh my! I finished the Frozen Foote series in Canton this morning. I ran 3 out of the 4 races (I missed the one in Dec.) so I got a shirt! I'm wearing it right now and it fits great :).
I'm extremely proud of my efforts in this series! For you to understand my pride let me detail my past performances.
The first race started out beautiful. It was a sunny and warm day in January! But then it started pouring. I was not trained well because of my fall/winter slack off and I was pretty disappointed in my time. I also had to walk at some points. It's a hilly course and there is a pretty big hill right at the end of the 4 mile course.
There are the stats from January. Don't get me wrong, I lapped everyone on the couch that morning, but that was a pretty slow pace for me, or it would have been last fall. I was completely out of gas.
So I trained for the following month being much more aware of adding hills to my treadmill runs. Also I just naturally ran more as our marathon training began.
I was much better prepared for the race 4 weeks later in February. I knew the course and was ready to shave some time off. I was so greatly relieved that my training paid off and I shaved 5 minutes off my time!
Hooray! A 10:30 pace is much closer to my speed.
For the last month I have been further preparing for this last race in the series. Last night I wondered to myself if I could go faster. Should I try to go faster? My mid-week long run I had to dramatically slow down and keep the incline at or below 1.5% because the back of my left knee was quite painful. A hamstring issue. Last night at Zumba I stretched my legs really well before and after class and this morning my knee felt pretty good. I decided to go for it. To push as hard as I currently can.
The weather was perfect this morning for a winter run. Very light small snowflakes, about 30 degrees, and overcast. The only unfortunate thing was that we ran into the wind on the way back this time. It made the last 2 miles tough. I'm also pretty convinced that there are more downhills on the way out. My thighs were screaming on the last very long hill. I felt my body sugars completely drain. My legs and whole body were quite shaky. I kept the faith. I kept my form. I kept breathing and slowly the depletion went away and I just kept chugging along. And you know what? I ran under 10 minute miles! Yippee! For me this is great. So I shaved 2 more minutes off my time! And my knee feels pretty good :)
Rock on running. I'm ready to meet your challenge of many more miles. Show me where the road leads...
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