St. Malachi 5 miler - March 14, 2009

My first "race" report of 2009! I can't really call it a race for me, because this was the first time in 3 months that I ran over 4 miles. After the 3 1/2 weeks of NO running in late Jan. and early Feb, I very slowly increased my running so I could avoid any knee problems. So far, so good. Anyhow, I arrived to the race early so I could help with set-up, but didn't really do much "helping" besides carring a table. My stomach wasn't very happy, either from the dinner the night before, getting up early, and / or nerves, but that's pretty normal for me these days. It was nice to hang out with some other CTCers before the race, and put a face to some of their names. Then I found my brother and sister-in-law who were running, too. We got to chat a bit, and then I spotted an old friend from HS, Eric Norton. I hadn't seen him since the fall of '93, so we were able to catch up some, too. Well, a few minutes before race time, we headed to the starting line. It was a cool morning, but there was beautiful sunshine, and it ended up being a great day to run. I was worried about not wearing enough warm clothes (I can never decide how many layers to wear on a cold day...), but I made a good choice with just my under armour and CTC tank top. The race itself was pretty uneventful for me. I was of course taking it easy, so even though mile one was downhill, I ran it in 9:20. Mile two took me 9:40. I didn't like crossing all the bridges with just metal grates across them. I should have headed over to the sidewalk like some others did! Mile 3 had a long gradual uphill, so I went around 9:58. The slight downhill on mile 4 gave me some confidence, plus I was feeling really good and warmed up, so I ran faster and had a 9:03. I was worried about the hill at the end, so I slowed up a bit and ran the last mile in about 9:59. My official time for the 5 miles was 48:00.41. Not close to a PR, but I was just happy that my knee didn't give up on me. :-) I didn't run at all yesterday, but I did go 3 miles today, and still feel okay. I'm going to keep doing my knee exercises, visiting the chiropractor, and building up my milage slowly. Hopefully that will keep me in good shape and on track for the 1/2 marathon in May. Before then, I might do the CTC Indoor Tri later this month and a 5k and the Hermes 10 miler next month.