Gilio 5K

A quick post from me, since I haven't been blogginating for a while. I ran the local club race this past Saturday. The day started cool and overcast, but by the time the 9am start rolled around it had transitioned to hut, muggy, and overcast. My 3 mile warm-up had left me drenched in sweat, and I was feeling intensely glad not to be running a half marathon today. My left Achilles was hurting (as it is wont to do). I had tweaked it a bit a week ago when I did what I thought was to be my penultimate specific-endurance workout for my upcoming half-marathon (11 miles with 42 minutes at 6 min "effort"). I finished the long AT section of the run, but my ankle was throbbing, and I reluctantly cut it two miles short. Since then I've been mostly resting it, and was up in the air about racing Saturday.

But I did, rightly or wrongly. The race kicked off on time, and I shot out along with John Sullivan from HFC, and a local Norwood runner. They stayed with me up the first hill, and then I started to pull away. First mile in 5:09.

I hit the rotary and tried to get a glimpse of my pursuers, but they must have been less than the rotary-circumference behind me, because I couldn't see them. I kept grinding on to mile 2, which was way slower.

The last mile up Albemarle ground on. I will cop to slacking off a bit. The humidity and the heat pressed down on me, but I guess it must have been affecting everyone else too because I didn't hear any footsteps or breathing. I reached the crest of the final hill and bombed down it, managing a little kick for the win, in 17:16.

I had two 2nd-place finishes at the Gilio 5K, so it felt good to finally win the thing. The downside? My achilles was really sore at the finish--even though the volunteer PTs there were nice enough to roll it out for me (thanks!). I had a pretty good limp going on. At present I am thinking I'm going to have to bow out of the Simsbury Iron Horse half marathon. I was really excited to run a flat 13.1 in my home-town, but I'm not going to if it just means digging more of a hole for myself. Time to lay off and wait for my body to give me the green-light signal.