Life 'n Legos: Raleigh Fall Festival 5K/10K

I must be a glutton for punishment because I signed myself up for a 10K over the weekend. When Christy and I were at the expo for City of Oaks we saw that there was a 5 and 10K the following weekend and it would only cost us $13 to sign up. We jumped right on it. Christy's husband Trey ran along with one of Christy's coworkers, her spouse, and some other chick. It was kind of fun to have a group, but my legs were just totally done so I had a hard time keeping up. After about 2 miles I told Christy to leave me because I had already been in pain for about 1.5 miles.

My knees were KILLING me from the first few steps. After I worked out some of the kinks in my legs (this was my first run since the double marathon) I got into a little bit of a groove. I never felt good, but I stopped feeling bad. I felt lethargic, like there was no power in my legs, they were just kinda there to place one foot in front of the other. When I hit mile 4 I started wishing that I had signed up for the 5K. At that point I had to drag my legs behind me, they felt like dead weight. It was a really long 2.2 miles. This little old lady was beasting me. Thankfully I caught her in the last 3/4 of a mile and ended up leaving her (along with a few others) in the dust. I think it took me about 1 hour 3 minutes which isn't too bad, its just over a 10 minute per mile pace, but its A LOT slower than I usually run a 10K. It was a good time and it was a nice little last hurrah in Raleigh so I'm very glad that I did it, but its time for a little break from running.

I plan to go back to some weight lifting and shorter runs. My goal is to maintain a distance of about 15 miles until I have a marathon or an ultra to train for. I'm looking at a shorter ultra (30 miles) in February, but I plan to let my body have some rest for a little and focus in the exciting things that are in the not so distant future :-)