As two of you know, I have been fighting a bum ankle. I was/am fighting tendinitis of my right ankle. So as the three web-sites that I looked to for advise on how to deal with it suggested, I took about 10 days off of running and gave my ankle a lot of rest and ice at least three times a day. So Friday was the Second Annual CATnip Friday 5K. I like the local races for a couple of reasons, the first being that I can walk to the event and get in some warm-up running on my way there; secondly, I can train on the course as often as I want before the event. Home field advantage is kinda nice when you are encouraging others that there are only two short little hills left, and they can make it. I was hoping to have either Number 1 or my wife join me since this was going to be my first run in almost 2 weeks. I was planning on going out and running REALLY slow. Neither joined me, as the temperature was near 90 at the start time and my wife didn't feel she could do it and she didn't want our daughter to go either. I was a bit disapointed.
I made my way to the back third of the pack at the start and waited for the horn. When the horn sounded we took off and I meandered through the gates of the high school fields and out onto the roads I run all the time. We wound through the neighborhood and after about 1/2 mile my ankle had warmed up nicely and I was plugging along. There was a woman in very cool plaid running shorts that was in front of me and I noticed that she was running on her toes (like we are supposed to). So, now I just hung at that possition and watched her feet (really). I was hoping to stay at that pace until the first little steep downhill, I wanted to see how one runs downhill on their toes without falling on their face, but alas, that was not to be. As we crossed the 1 mile mark, the vollunteer there calls out "8:54". Wait! What?!? Um, excuse me, that is about 2 minutes faster than I want to be running. But my ankle felt good, so I stayed even with Plaid Shorts for as long as I could. At about the half-way point however, my lack of running for that many days started to catch up, and she left me to wonder what hills look like.
As I neared the end of the run, there were a few people starting to walk, and I get so pumped when running, I had to encourage them. One person nodded and tried to get going again, the other just gave me a dirty look. Oh well, I was having fun and I was running again! As I approached the last turn on the track the timer was ticking off 28:52; 28:53; 28;54; and I was thinking, "um sub 10 miles on a 're-hab run'?". I finished with a recorded time of 29:11 which is technically a PR. Not what I had in mind for the evening, but hey, I get to start running again!!! And that is the best victory of them all!
After the race, I talked to Plaid Shorts, and she was very nice and recommended that I read a book called "Pose Running". She said it took a while to get used to running that way, and that she slowed way down at first, but she is a believer and having watched her run, I would say she was definitely relaxed moving along the roads. I may have to give that a look.
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