Race Report: Impala Stampede 5K 2024

Why did I sign up to run this race? 

This race has I think been a Pacific Association race & part of the Road Short Course Grand Prix since its inception. Up until this year it had been called the Stow Lake Stampede, but with the renaming of Stow Lake (for very good reasons), the race needed a new moniker as well. Since "Blue Heron Lake Stampede" doesn't quite roll off the tongue in the same way, the race ended up taking the name of its sponsoring team. Because it's a PA race and starts literally three miles from my house, I signed up for it a long time ago because it's an easy way to help meet my team obligation of running eight PA races per year.

And then what happened?

Race Report: Silicon Valley Turkey Trot 5K

Why did I sign up to run this race? 

Not that I've signed up for anything even *remotely* high stakes in quite a while, but honestly, this race is about THE lowest-stakes thing I've signed up for in recent memory. I am almost always traveling for Thanksgiving, and since we're staying home this year, I wanted to take the opportunity to run a local Turkey Trot just for funsies. 

A few weeks back I polled my team just to see if others were thinking about doing one and if there seemed to be critical mass somewhere (we have a number of local options here). A lot of ladies were planning on doing the Silicon Valley race in Mountain View (which offers both a 5K & 10K), so I figured it would be fun to join the group. I really, truly had no goals or ambitions whatsoever other than to run just fast enough to have fun.

And then what happened?

Generally I've felt really good running lately, but in the week leading up to the Turkey Trot, I started to struggle a bit, with my recovery score gradually sliding down through the yellow and into the red, in spite of really trying to focus on rest. In retrospect I think this was mostly about work stress and Thanksgiving prep stress, which I've learned can have a *huge* effect on how well your body recovers. On Wednesday I was feeling pretty exhausted so I decided to skip my usual shakeout run altogether in favor a bit more rest. To be honest, that choice was at least as much mental as it was physical -- a super easy 3 mile jog with a few strides thrown in shouldn't feel like much of a strain, but what was kind of a strain was planning out my day and fitting that in at a reasonable hour plus the whole rigamarole of getting dressed and cleaning up after. Mentally, I just did not want to deal with it, and it was such a (weirdly) huge weight off my shoulders after I emailed my coach to tell her. Like I said, this race had never been a high stakes thing for me but the closer it got, the more my motivation and ability to care about the outcome dropped. 😅 I was glad I'd already signed up and paid for it because otherwise I totally might have just flaked!

NOT DEAD YET (Part 1)

Hi hi friends! Honestly I do not know who even reads this anymore, but since the worst thing that happens is that this missive sits unread out in the ether, what is there to lose really?

Anyway, if you are here and reading, welcome! You are great and I love you.

I'm finding that I sometimes go through the following cycle:

(1) Blog semi-consistently for a while 

(2) Get super-duper-hella busy & overwhelmed with life & work 

(3) Realize that in some ways blogging gives my life & thoughts a certain kind of structure that I start to miss after a few months 

(4) Sheepishly slink back to Blogger & write an awkward/apologetic "Heeeyyyyy it's me again????" post 

I heard keeping readers on their toes like that is great for getting those clicks and growing readership. Everyone love a little "will-she-won't-she" tension, amirite? Now you know my secret.

Race Report: Stow Lake Stampede 5K 2022

Why did I sign up for this race?

This race was another on the PA short-course circuit where I thought we might end up having a team, and it seemed like a nice follow-up to the (40)8K in April. It didn't hurt that it's super close to home (just three miles away in Golden Gate Park) on extremely familiar ground.

I was also just excited to try my hand at a 5K again, especially in a situation where I'd have a big chunk of weeks to train for it consistently in a way that really targeted 5K speed. So often when I've run 5Ks it's been in the middle of training for a longer distance, or the beginning of a season as a kind of fitness gauge, or a convenient way to get in a workout; I was really curious what I might be able to do at this point with some for-real 5K-specific training. 

I really do believe that variety in what you train for plays a big role in everything from keeping running and training mentally fresh to making you fitter and less injury-prone by switching up the physical stimuli, so it was nice to do a couple of months training for the half and 10-miler and then switch gears to shorter, more speed-focused stuff.

And then what happened?

Stow Lake Race Week + Spring Racing Comes to An End!

(Posting this for the sake of completion -- alas I didn't manage to get it up before leaving for vacation. :) )

Hello from the end of spring racing season 2022! Apparently I finished up my spring races just in time for it to get hella hot out. No 12-mile workouts in 90F for me, ha! (Er, at least for now.)

 *~*~Stow Lake Stampede 5K Race Week!~*~*~

Grand Total: 29.5 miles

* 24 easy
* 2.4 speed
* 3.1 race

Monday 5/16: Rest

Tuesday 5/17: a.m. 3 easy to/from gym + 1 hour strength; p.m. 2 warm up, 2 miles of 2:00 fast / 1:00 easy, 2 cool down = 9 total

Wednesday 5/18: 5 easy

Thursday 5/19: 3 easy to/from gym + 1 hour strength

Friday 5/20: 30-35 minutes easy Rest. I just had this hunch that my body needed to take an extra rest day this week before the race, so I went with it. No regrets!

Saturday 5/21: 3 easy + 4 strides = 3.4 total

Sunday 5/22: Race! 3 warm up, 3.1 race, 3 cool down = 9.1 total

(Race report here!)

Mental Health Talk: Less Thinking, More Running (1 Week to Stow Lake 5K)

Someone created this to help kids handle their anxious feelings better but spoiler, it's occasionally useful for certain 41-year-olds as well

***CONTENT WARNING***, mental health talk ahead.

So, some years ago I started getting treatment for anxiety, not like horrific life-altering can't-function-in-the-world-on-a-daily-basis anxiety but a kind of constant, low-grade-but-sometimes-*less*-low-grade anxiety that, when I stopped to think about it, I had really suffered from for basically my entire teenage & adult life.

There were some ways in which it manifested in running, mostly around perfectionism and catastrophizing about races and psyching myself out, then super beating myself up if things didn't go at least acceptably okay. (Not productive, do not recommend.)

And then there was a period of time (~2017ish to ~2019sih?) where I started to have some weird issues every time I'd go to the track, which historically had always been my favorite workout of the week. I was telling my therapist about this once incidentally, how sometimes I would be warming up and not even doing anything hard yet and my heart rate would shoot up really high and I'd have this ringing in my ears and a sensation like ice water running through my veins, and my hands would shake a little and suddenly I'd feel lightheaded and have a hard time catching my breath. Weird, huh? So yeah, anyway!

And my therapist was like, "Uhhhh back up there chief, do you think maybe you were maybe having a little panic attack?"

And I just scoffed like, "What? Now that is ridiculous. Of course I wasn't having a panic attack. I think I'd know if I was having a panic attack."

And she was like, "Uhhhhh are you sure about that because I am a therapist whose job it is to know these things and tbh it kind of sounds like a little mini panic attack."

And I was like, "Madam. Please. WHY on EARTH would I be having a PANIC ATTACK before my track workout?"

And she was like, "EXCELLENT QUESTION MY FRIEND, PERHAPS YOU WOULD LIKE TO TALK ABOUT IT, PERHAPS TO SOMEONE LIKE I DUNNO ME, UR LITERAL THEREAPIST????"

Training Log: 2 Weeks to Stow Lake Stampede

Wow, it is so hard to believe it is only two weeks to Stow Lake 5K & the end of my spring racing season, and only about 3.5 weeks until my vacation! 

I don't know why it should be so funny to notice training working and yet it never fails to entertain me. This week's mid-week workout was 6 x 1K at 5Kish pace (not that I really know what that is right now, but the intervals were supposed to be at roughly 6:40-7:05 pace). On paper that still seems REALLY FAST to me but on the first three intervals I found myself running ~6:45ish pace, I don't want to say comfortably, but with a feeling like "You know what, this isn't that awful, I could do it for a while."

The last three definitely got harder, particularly keeping the legs turning over quickly towards the end of the interval, but I still managed the last one at 6:48 pace without feeling like I was going to die. So in the end I ran them all between 6:41-6:48 pace. If you'd have asked me a year ago if that was ever in the cards again, I probably would have laughed. Even just a few months ago I probably would have grimaced doubtfully.

Then on Sunday I had 12 miles, with fartleks for the middle four, 2:00 fast/2:00 easy, which I decided to do actually *at* Stow Lake because a) it's a nice place to run & b) I never really run fast there it & seemed like I might as well take the opportunity to practice.

Some random photos of Stow Lake I happen to have on my phone. It does not suck! Though the swans might chase you in a threatening manner.

 "Fast" wasn't really defined so I tried to do the first 2:00 by feel & without looking at my watch, aiming for "as fast I can run that feels like I can do it eight times without redlining" & apparently that was around 6:45 pace, which shouldn't have surprised me after Tuesday but still kind of did. (I even saw 5:51-5:52 pace on my watch for some of that last hard 2:00, and you can be sure any time I see sub-6:00 on my watch under any circumstances, I will 100% mention it on the internet.)

While obviously I need the physical benefits of all the speed-focused stuff as much as anyone who is trying to run a fast 5K, I actually think my bigger hurdle has been mental; it's been so long since I've been able to run a 5K at sub-7:00 pace and so long since it was a pace I ran with any regularity that it's hard to believe it's something I can actually do, even with the right training. Running these workouts at what to me still feel like SOOOOPER fast paces has helped my brain kind of re-calibrate & go, "Okay, you know what, yes, 6:45 is a pretty hard and somewhat painful pace and also you have now trained your body so that it can actually maintain it for a while, possibly for an entire five kilometers."

Because after those workouts, I did find myself thinking that, yes, I actually think that physically I *could* run a 5K at that pace right now. Yes, it will be super hard and painful towards the end, but well, that's just racing, isn't it?

Of course, as I was reminded a couple of weeks ago, it all comes down to having a good day & getting the rest of your ducks in a row in terms of rest, recovery, mental state, etc. But I am feeling optimistic about Stow Lake!

 

 ~*~*~2 Weeks to Stow Lake Stampede 5K~*~*~

Grand Total: 38 miles

*  29 easy
*  9 speed

 

Monday 5/2: Rest

Tuesday 5/3: a.m. 3 easy to/from gym + 1 hour strength + p.m. 3 more easy = 6 total. This was a difficult mental health day for reasons I am sure many of you are already aware of & in the afternoon I was going a bit nuts & really needed a little physical activity to get the bees out of my skin.

Wednesday 5/4: warm up, 6 x 1K VO2 max (6:40-7:00 pace) / 2:30 jog, cool down 5 easy. In the gym we've been putting serious work toward strengthening my hamstrings and adductors, especially on the right side. It is clearly working because I woke up quite sore in my right hamstring/adductor! I could have tried the workout but I thought better to take an easy day & do it Thursday instead.

Thursday 5/5: 2.7 warm up, 6 x 1K VO2 max (6:40-7:00 pace) / 2:30 jog, 2.3 cool down (= 10 total) + 1 hour strength. The downside of moving the workout to this day was having to back-to-back it with strength. C'est la vie! Let's just say I ate a hearty dinner.

Friday 5/6: 5.5 easy. Grocery store run! + a little extra.

Saturday 5/7: Rest

Sunday 5/8: 4 warm up, 4 miles of 2:00 fast/2:00 easy, 4 cool down = 12 total.

Race Report: SF PrideRun 5K 2019

(**Quick Editor's Note** No, I have not stopped blogging--for behold, a blog post appears before you!--but it's been hard lately to find time to do it regularly, so I've been posting more frequent quick/short stuff--micro-blogging, if you will--over on Tha Insta. Just, y'know. If you ever start wondering what I'm up to when I'm not over here.)

I had a pretty sweet May of training with close to 180 miles, which is a lot for me these days. However, in June, work stress & travel was back with a vengeance, and while I did do *SOME* training, including several workouts and long runs, it wasn't the month I'd hoped for. PrideRun had always been one of those "maybe" races on my summer list; I'd been planning to target a fast July 4th 5K (PrideRun is NOT a fast course), and racing a hilly 5K five days beforehand seemed not conducive to running my best possible race on July 4th. On the other hand, PrideRun is *SO* much fun, cheap, really close to home, and always benefits a good cause (this year it was Gender Spectrum); since I wasn't in peak shape or anything & didn't feel like I'd be blowing a chance at a PR on July 4th, I decided what the heck, let's go have some fun on Pride weekend.

Race Report: Hellyer 5K

If you caught this post, you know I've been feeling overwhelmed at work and also a bit burned out on running and especially hard training lately, so I've been giving myself a little break from the pressure of sticking to a training plan. I decided not to run Stowe Lake since I am now in terrible (or at least far from great) shape and had not actually registered for it yet. However, since I'd paid for this race and it was just a low-key community 5K, I decided to go ahead and do it.

Originally this was supposed to be an all-out race pace effort, sort of a dress rehearsal for Stowe Lake in two weeks. But given the burnout situation I told myself that the point was now just to have fun and enjoy running (remember how you LIKE running and it's actually FUN when you don't put tons of pressure on yourself???). All I had to do was show up, run whatever pace felt good, and if it was slow and bad, oh well, at least I got out of the house & got a workout in and an Alice in Wonderland medal & had fun.

(Now, here is some honest talk that I don't know how I feel about. I think I've always placed in my age group at Brazen 10Ks and sometimes been top three overall, but I took a peek at last year's Hellyer 5K results and, based on the times, saw that if I ran it with any amount of speed, even way off my recent 5K times, I actually had a shot at winning overall. And I would be lying a little bit if I didn't think to myself, "You know, San Jose is a long way to go for a 5K, but if you have a chance at actually winning..."

Race Report: San Jose Shamrock Run 10K

Long time, no post!

To be honest I've been a bit down about running lately & didn't even bother running the March 3 5K I was signed up for a couple of weeks back because it was stressing me out so much. I have more to say about that, but the tl;dr of it is that (thanks in part to bt), I WAS able to psyche myself up for a local 10K over St. Patrick's Day weekend and it went relatively well, so for now, let's all just enjoy a relatively positive race report!

I found this race when I was just going through lists of races that could work with my schedule. There were a few different Bay Area options for a St. Patrick's Day race, but this one was the closest & looked to have the best course and was also put on by Represent Running, a reputable Bay Area race company, so it made it to the long list and then the short list of spring options.

It was the first one I was really supposed to RACE-race, but given how spotty my training has been lately, it was hard to get too excited about that. I did not feel like I was in great shape and it's hard to get psyched for an all-out effort when you're pretty sure you're only going to end up with a mediocre result. Sure, I could just go and do it as a workout (or even just an easy run), but I never find that very satisfying, and if I'm just going to do a workout or easy run, let's be real, I'd rather not get up at ass-o-clock in the morning and drive for an hour.

Race Report: Silicon Valley Santa Run

Woohoo, last race report of 2018!!!

To recap the context: The plan this fall was to run a bunch of miles, race a bunch of short stuff under 10K, & get wicked fast. Alas life has not quite work out as I'd planned & there have been more than a few super frustrating weeks lately.

But, the nice thing about 5Ks is that there's not a ton of pressure at any given race. Unlike longer distances, finishing is trivial, and if you have a shitty 5K one week (or get sick, or life gets in the way) you can take another crack at it a week or two later. So this fall I'd signed up for three, one per month in each of October, November, & December.

Prior to OktobeRun in Redwood City, my physical niggles were at their worst so I was surprised to run 22:23, my slowest ever 5K race, sure, but not by all that much! I'd been worried my body wouldn't even let me break 8:00's, so even managing to run 10K pace kind of felt like a victory. After that I'd thought, "Cool, good to have a stake in the ground. I can build on this. Four weeks until Oakland Turkey Trot, plenty of time to get some solid training in & shave a few seconds off!"

But then life happened, I got sick, spent most of November traveling, California caught on fire, etc. etc. and I only managed to get a few workouts in during that time. Yet, somehow, I showed up in Oakland and ran 21:46. Again, it's not that this was a *great* time in the grand scheme of my historical 5K performances (in fact I think it's kind of right in the middle), but given everything and the fact that I really had not trained AT ALL since OktobeRun, a 0:37 improvement in such a short timespan just seemed completely insane. But hey, I'll take it! And once again, my thoughts were, "Hey, 3.5 weeks until Santa Run, I am DEFINITELY DEFINITELY going to get some solid training in and shave just a few more seconds off this distance in 2018!"

2019 Races: January through April

Friends, can you believe the calendar's about to flip again?? What the heck?

I am wrapping up work stuff & packing today & tonight, & then tomorrow we jet off to Eastern Washington to spend Christmas week with Don's parents. Then it's back home for one day, & on to another plane for Mexico for New Year's week to celebrate a good friend's 40th. (Did you know Ensenada is Mexico's wine country? Did you know Mexico HAD wine country?? Me either! #TIL. I'm so pumped.)

I am waiting on race pictures to post my last race report of the year (Silicon Valley Sant Run 5K), so in the meantime, please enjoy some musings about what I might do race-wise in the first half (or so) of 2019.

When I started running again last August post-Boston, I was feeling unmotivated & in need of another big-hairy-audacious goal to chase. Eventually I settled on the Wharf-to-Wharf six-miler at the end of July and finishing in the top 100. Seven months is really too long to be one training cycle, though (at least for me), so my plan is to split January through July into two 3-3.5 month chunks with a little break in the middle, which I've started referring to as "Season 1" & "Season 2".

I think I want to run maybe 3-4 races in each season (all in the 5-10K range), with a target race at the end of each. For season 2 obviously my 'A' race will be Wharf to Wharf, and for season 1 I'm leaning toward Stow Lake Stampede 5K in Golden Gate Park. I've nailed down a few things but still need to fill some slots.

What do YOU think I should run? Here are the candidates:

'A' Race Time Predictions!!

If you've been following the drama the last few months you might recall that I've been having some annoying issues with my left side, from my lower back/SI joint, through my hamstring, all the way down to the plantar fasciitis (which is chronic) in my foot. It was sort of at its worst a week before OktobeRun but a week off magically healed me enough to get through the race at a pretty okay pace, though the hamstring was pretty unhappy after.

I had some forced rest (thanks, travel & weather!) after that, which probably ended up being for the best because in spite of basically no training between OktobeRun and Oakland Turkey Trot, I had a significantly faster race.

Riding the high of that race, I told myself, OK but for real now! Three & a half weeks til Santa Run! That is totally enough time to get serious about this shite & shave a few more seconds off this beezie.

And, I DID have a couple of good weeks. But then this past week/weekend I got called to NY at the last minute, & if there is anything that will eff with my training plans, it's these short coast-to-coast trips where the time zone gremlins just completely destroy whatever free time/decent sleep you thought you had happening in your life. I won't even bother doing a training log for that week, since "training" consisted of

1) Tuesday 12/4 => 3.5 warm up, 6 x 200m / 200m jog, 2 miles @ aerobic threshold, 6 x 200m / 200m jog, 3.5 cool down = 12 total

2) Thursday 12/6 => spend the whole day flying/sitting in NYC traffic & arrive in so much winter boot-induced foot pain that the 7 easy on the schedule was never going to happen even IF I'd arrived at a decent hour.

3) Friday 12/7 => Work a full day on 3 hours of sleep, come back to hotel & crash

4) Saturday 12/8 => Work another full day on maybe 4 hours of sleep, just barely rally for 2 warm up, 3 x 1 mile @ HM pace, 2 cool down = 7.2 total.

5) Sunday 12/9 => Get up at 4:30am Eastern/1:30am Pacific to catch a 7:00am plane home, land at 10am Pacific, & immediately come home & bake cookies for a party. (Again, I could barely walk this day, so there was no running; just 21 straight hours of mostly regrettable consciousness.)

It was really this last run on Saturday that was the turning point for me.

Race Report: Oakland Turkey Trot

If you've been keeping score at home, you know that my plan this fall was to run a bunch of miles, race a bunch of short stuff under 10K, & get wicked fast. You also know that life didn't quite work out as I'd planned & I've been getting more & more frustrated on the running front.

Last month I ran a 5K in Redwood City by the skin of my teeth. By the time the race rolled around my goal had gone from "destroy this mother, come dangerously close to a PR, & depending on who else shows up maybe even win" to "just finish & don't make my foot/back/hamstring worse." I ran 22:23, which was work & definitely not dawdling, but not *fast*, exactly, and I never felt great doing it, during or after. Still, I was proud of myself for making a real effort to not phone it in, not giving up, & pushing hard toward the end.

In the immediate aftermath I thought "Hey, I can build on that! Four weeks till Oakland Turkey Trot, I can definitely improve over 22:23!" But then November happened, and suddenly I was not so sure.

But I was signed up & committed; no matter how bad or out of shape I was feeling, I still wanted to show up in Oakland and run the best race I could. If it's bad news, then let's at least get an objective view of how bad it is.

Race Report: Redwood City OktobeRun 5K

My plan for this fall originally was to run lots of short, fast races, with nothing except RNR San Jose over 10K. Things got off to a good start with a great 10K and a super fun cross country race, but after that a combination of social obligations, work commitments, and general life stress/exhaustion took their toll and I skipped out on a couple of races I'd been excited to run. To force myself not to skip anymore I went ahead and signed up for three 5Ks (which you can see over there in the right sidebar), of which OktobeRun was the first.

Race Discount Code! (And, Building a Race Season)

I was thinking about it the other day and realized that since I started running marathons in December 2011, there's been extremely little time when I haven't had one on the calendar *somewhere*. After CIM 2011, I waited maybe 6-8 months to sign up for CIM 2012. I signed up for Mountains 2 Beach 2013 before CIM 2012, and then after M2B I had a gap of about three months before I signed up for the 2014 Napa Valley Marathon (which I deferred a year because of a stress fracture). But other than those two gaps, at least as well as I can remember, I have always had a marathon somewhere on my race calendar, even if it was a nearly year and a half out.

It's pretty safe to say that I'm feeling satisfied on that front, for now; after so many marathons where something went wrong, I spent a long time feeling like I had unfinished business with the whole thing and just wanted one good, solid 26.2 where my training went well and I didn't get sick or injured and the weather cooperated. I feel like I finally got that at CIM 2016, but of course after that there was no question but that I was then going to run Boston (and Big Sur!) since I had the opportunity and might never get it again.

Discount Code: Race to the End of Summer!

Hi Bay Area friends,

Just a quick reminder about one of my new favorite local races as you begin to think about your fall race schedule. In both 2016 and 2017 I ran the Race to the End of Summer 10K in San Jose, and had a great time! There's also a 5K as well as a half marathon option. AND, I have a sweet $7 discount code (AK2018) for you to use for any distance.

The race is Sunday, September 2, & takes place near the Coyote Creek trail in San Jose. It's not a super pricey event, BUT the first increase is coming up on March 15, so if you register soon and use the code, that's $18 for the 5K, $23 for the 10K, or $43 for the half. Not a bad deal!

Race Report: Rock N Roll San Jose Half Marathon (& 5K/10K)

***Update: You guys, I just realized that this was my 20th half marathon!!! I'll just be sitting at home awaiting my extra-special bonus medal that I assume someone somewhere will put in the mail to me, since there is apparently one of those for every possible running accomplishment imaginable.***

I've had a super tough time lately getting back to this little corner of the internet, but last week I did manage to post a pre-race update on The Instagrams:

My friends are the best.

ICYMI I had one of the worst races of my life a month ago (Race to the End of Summer 10K), which felt extra-special bad since last year in that same race I was 2nd overall, 1st in my age group, and came within spitting distance of felling a four-year-old PR. My training had been better this year and I thought for sure I'd at least beat last year's time and maybe even PR.

But you know what they say: Never tell the universe your plans!

Even before that, though, 2017 had been one awful race after another in spite of the fact that my training has been going reasonably well. So, there is definitely a part of me that was trying to a) brace myself for an awful RNRSJ and b) figure out what the heck I was going to do with myself emotionally if it happened.

And you know what? That's exhausting.

Race Report: Tamalpa Runners Track Meet 5K

BACKGROUND:

To summarize some semi-relevant stuff I've posted in the past, I've only really ever run one 5K in my adult life where I was healthy and in good shape & training kinda-sorta heavily (to the extent that I ever train "heavily"), which is where I set my current PR (20:44/6:40 pace) in May 2012. It was so much faster than nearly every other 5K I've ever run that after a while it didn't really feel real, like "WHO ME RUN MULTIPLE 6:40 MILES IN A ROW? Phhhbbbt, that's not a thing that actually happened." Well, after massively PRing the marathon in December, I figured, what the hey? Let's take a crack at thing and see just how sturdy that dusty old PR is.

So, I registered for PrideMeet on June 17. (ProTip: If you want to run a fast, accurate 5K, do it on the track. Just don't weave too much.) I was in 60/40 not bad shape going into it in early May, then spent about 6-7 weeks adding some serious speed workouts. The workouts were tough but made a nice change from marathon training, and other than a sketch right calf muscle, I felt good going into the meet.

One sentence race recap: I ran a 6:52 mile which felt weirdly easy, then a 6:41 mile and still felt good, then proceeded to pull my calf so badly I couldn't put weight on it for several days. {Shakes fist at sky} Sure, I was bummed and frustrated, but another part of me could not believe I had run those splits and felt so good doing it. Sure, the plan had been to run this one 5K and then get serious about San Jose half training (10/8), but somehow I just could not let it go. What if I let the calf heal and run another?? Could that seemingly-untouchable PR seriously be about to fall??

And you know where this leads.

Tuesday, July 18 was soon circled on my calendar.

Race Report: SF Track & Field Club Pride Meet

Photo credit: SF Track & Field Club

TL;DR - I was having a GREAT race until pretty much right at mile 2 when something in my calf felt like it just popped and I nearly fell over due to the ice pick-like stab of pain that went screaming through my gastrocnemius. It was an instant race ender, which is super disappointing, but there's also some pretty amazing silver lining.

THE LONGER VERSION:

I'd been excited about this race for a couple of months now. I've wanted to dip my toe back into the world of track racing for a while now, but the timing has never worked out -- I've either always been injured, recovering, traveling, or aiming for some other big race that conflicted with the Bay Area track meets I knew about. This was finally the year!