5k for the Western PA Humane Society

The past two weeks or so have been a difficult one for me. I was discouraged about my injury & I hadn’t been running that much, which in turn made me absolutely miserable. Like a real love in my life, I lean on & use running as an outlet. For the first time, I got to experience about a week & a half without it & let me tell you, I never want that to happen again! On top of not running, my cycle was very late, about 18 days, & I was freaking out. All in all, it turns out all of the running, weight loss, & diet change shocked my body & it just had to get used to the new found athlete in me. Thankfully now I am back to my old self.

This morning was the Snowflake Shuffle 5k, a race for the Western PA Humane Society. I love animals, so I knew I wanted to do this race. All week, the forecast called for rain. I woke up this morning & wouldn’t you know, it’s pouring out. I’ve only run in the rain once before, & it was in the summer. Summer downpours are awesome to run in. It feels so good. I had a feeling I wouldn’t think the same about this cold rain. I tried my best to prepare myself.

Once I got down to the race point, I noticed how narrow the trail was. Thankfully, this wasn’t a very large race, so part of me didn’t expect to PR. The race started & boy was it a struggle in every way possible. I hadn’t ran since Tuesday, so my breathing was all out of whack & my legs were tired. So many people were running around me, which really discouraged me at first, & I thought for sure I would be the last one finished. The trail was full of mud puddles, so there was a lot of running on the grass around them. This course was flat, & out & back. It would’ve been very beautiful had it been a nice day out, we ran right along the Monongahela River. After the first mile or mile & a half, I began to feel a lot better. Oh, did I mention I woke up with the worst cramps known to man? Ugh. The two Aleve I popped before I left my house thankfully worked.

With no leg pain, no shin splints (I wore my old Nike pegasus to gather some comparison to the new shoes I bought that were giving me pain) & feeling about 95%, I finished in 35:01 🙂 a new PR! i’ve never ran that fast before, & I couldn’t be happier. Here are my splits:

Mile 1: 11:10 (wow!)
Mile 2: 11:22
Mile 3: 11:17

How exciting! I have another race tomorrow morning, so let’s see what I can do 🙂