Monday 8 October 2012

Insipid, lets say

I ran a race this weekend. It was not a pleasant experience, lets say. I am still worrying about my feet. There is something messed up about them. Not severely messed up enough to go to a doc about. But definitely troublesome enough to scare me into not doing anything long in the nature of runs.

So this race was not planned. I was hoping I could run the 10k version of it. Despite all the whatsapp traffic of all my friends running halfs and fulls that was very tempting, I resisted. But even the 10k looked dicey. Because of the domestic duties, lets say.

We dropped the child off at the pool. She was surly. She got a yelling as she tried to get into the car wearing her rather large duffel bag on her back, got stuck, knocked her father's mobile from his hand, and it split in two, and well, it was not fun. (Its a nokia, it survived, but barely).

I forgot my amphipod. Thankfully just about remembered the garmin and a hand-towel - two things I had actually forgotten earlier this week when I went on my run! But my mood was bad, lets say. I hate working out less than usual and things are spiraling out of control and I am not able to catch a break.

We reached about 2 minutes after the 10k was flagged off. No one was around to tell us if it was OK to just start running. At any rate our official registration was for the 5k (because I wasn't sure if we would reach in time for the 10k). So I suggested we wait for that flag off.

There were a bunch of kids, like real pint-sizes. And a bunch of what seemed like college kids with a mike. Suffice to say that I was glad when they sent us on our way. I have years of experience avoiding start-line annoyances, and I did have to pull from that experience a lot, lets say.

I wanted to set an aggressive target (for me) for the 5k, as aggressive as my feet would allow. Sub-25, for sure. I felt confident that I could pull off a couple of sub-5 minute kilometers. I felt fine, breathing was good, I was in the 4:30s in the first kilometer. But what a BUMMER!

They screwed up on the mile markers and they sent us back after just 1.4kms! Seriously. I think the water station girl just messed up and drew up our bibs and sent us back. I tried to talk to her and reason with her but it was making me cool down so I said forget it and headed back.

My husband looked pissed as I passed him. He said something about how I turned too early. I had to shrug my shoulders and keep moving. But it messed with me. I don't run short races anymore. I have completely forgotten how that feels. And I sure as hell don't want to do a 3k run on a trail...

I lost my rhythm completely after that. Hung in there and managed to do decent pace and finish in about 14 mins. At least it was under 5 mins/km pace, which was what I was shooting for. I came in third, behind a kid (teenager, I hope, at least, couldn't tell), and a guy wearing checked shorts.

I went in without really intending to run fast, but it was still very frustrating. I then ran a bit more on the trail with my husband, and we were both fighting big time. Thankfully I ran into my friend Rocket on her way back in her HM.

I foisted myself upon her, insisting on pacing her, and it was a glorious few kilometers. I love running with her and the few times we have done so, we have both done really well. She is the awesomest girl and has a super sunny attitude that I love.

My legs ached a bit, I was super sleepy when I came home, and aside from watching Rocket get her PB at 1:55, it was painful. I met all my friends at various points of their races, which was nice but I also felt a bit irritated that I was not running...

And the piece of cake was saved for later. We drove back to the pool, dragged the child out, ate breakfast, showered and were just rushing to the music class. I just stepped out of the house and twisted my ankle. The same damn right leg that has been bothering me all my damn life (it feels like).

Its not too too bad, I elevated immediately, and iced it when we returned home several hours later. But don't blame me for hating everything right now. (At least my sun burn heat rash healed after the cream and anti-histamine the doc lady prescribed me). Ugh.


1 comment:

dipali said...

Ugh! Hope all is well again:)