Weekend update.
Saturday was 2 easy miles.
This was supposed to be just a couple of easy miles. Ended up running the second mile a little faster than needed.
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Sunday!! Big day has finally arrived! Woke up at my normal 4 am, showered, coffee, toast with peanut butter. Hit the road at 5:30. Arrived at the race at 6:30. Great morning for a run. Temps were in the mid 50's and not a cloud in the sky. Got my running shoes on, went for a walk to see the area and burn off some stress. 7:10 slow jog around the block. Lined up toward the back of the pack at 7:25. 7:30 on the dot, they send off the fast runners!! Pretty small group of maybe 20. 2 minutes later they released the pack.
Started off crowded. Some of the path was really only wide enough for a couple people and of course we were 5 wide at this point. But, that only lasted the first half mile or so and then it started to spread out. The path got wider and people settled into their paces.
First water/powerade stop was at 3 miles. I didn't take in any water, and I think this proved to be a mistake later on. Settled into a really comfortable pace around 10:30/mile. Breathing was great, legs felt great! At 6 miles I took in a cup of powerade, plus I'd been sipping on my water. 10k clocked in at 1:05:15, this was my 2nd fastest 10k and I was really feeling good about everything!
And then.... Well, disaster... At 8.3 miles my right calve got a twinge of a cramp. I tried to run thru it, but by 8.7 miles it was clear this was going to be a problem. I decided to stop and stretch. This helped a little, but by mile 9, I was pretty much a walker. :-(
Took in water and powerade at mile 9 and at 12. After mile 12, I decided to try and walk and run. Started off, walking 100 steps and running 100 steps. Then managed to increase it to walk 100 run 400. It was ugly, but I managed to finish!
Finished at 2:43 and change. Not great. But I finished.
So. I'm not really sure how I feel about my accomplishment. On the one hand I'm happy I finished! And that was ultimately the primary goal. On the other hand, I feel like I could/should have done better.
Everything felt so good until the cramps!! I kinda feel like the cramping was a lack of nutrition/hydration. I'm not so sure I was ever fully rehydrated from being sick the weekend before. Clearly, I'm going to have to make some better nutrition/hydration choices.
My left knee is feeling pretty sore today. I think that may be the result of changing my stride as I was trying to compensate for the cramps. Hopefully it'll feel better after a few days rest. If not, I think I'll be seeing the doc maybe Wednesday. Want to make sure I didn't damage anything in there.
I'll be taking the next week off from running per my plan and honestly, I think I need it. Going to try and continue to get at least 10k steps in everyday though.