Labor Your Legs

Before I get to the race report I need to get to Saturday. Usually on Saturdays I'm out the door by 5:45. The boys were leaving early with their Grandmother so I slept in and helped Jenn get them dressed and off. I headed out at 9 or so but didn't go to my usual spot. Since my next triathlon is here in Hattiesburg I will get to practice on the bike course and that is what I did. It has been somewhat cooler here if you call low 90's cool and that was the case Saturday morning. I believe it was 80 or so that morning. Perfect (I guess). On my way out I saw a huge group of people riding the course already and they looked as if they were struggling. I started out right on the course with no warm up. This bike course is somewhat hilly. Not my strength. Up a big hill right at the beginning. Great. I made my way up and it is just a bunch of rollers all of the way to the first turn. The pavement is really good on the whole course which is good. I'm sure the race director checked this out and I'm glad he did. I was making decent time. I was even going 44 mph at one point in full aero. That was awesome. I made it through most of the course with no problem until I headed back in. The last road is the hilliest. Curse you Knight Road. This one has a long gradual hill in the middle of it only to be followed up by a hill that is steep in the beginning then slacks off in the middle then a long gradual one again at the end. Let's just say I was stru-ga-lin. I was in my granny gear and maybe going 8 mph. Most of the other hills I was still making ok time but not this one. I will need to work on this. No more trips to the flat "trace" to ride. This is ok by me because it is like 5 minutes from my house and I can park at the community center and just ride Knight Road. I will find a place to do my "T" runs later. Needless to say I wasn't pleased by my ride Saturday but I know what it takes to make them better.


Labor Your Legs 5k


I woke up Monday with none other than a stomach ache. Great start. It was so bad I couldn't even eat anything. Not that I needed to but it just hurt that bad. Jenn and I headed out and got to the race start at 7. We both checked in got our bibs. The weather was nice. It was somewhat cool but so humid. So humid. Some friends of ours were running to so I just hung out and talked until the race start. No warm up. This is one of our running clubs biggest events and there were a good bit of racers there. We made our way to the start. I had a time goal of under 25 minutes going in but I would settle for under 26 minutes mainly because a friend of mine just ran one in 26 flat and I wanted to beat him. It was a typical 5k start. Everybody goes out too fast. Me included. My plan was to not do this. I finally settled and just ran my race or so I thought. We made a couple of turns and headed down a fairly long hill. I look down and I see my shoelace flapping in the wind. Great. Now I have to find a place to stop so I don't get run over. I stop in a driveway and tie it again. I have a way to tie shoes that won't come undone and it really works. It even works on Jacob's shoes so I KNOW it works. Well that morning I tied one shoe like normal and one with the good knot. Well guess which one came undone. Yep the normal one. I even have some Yanks laces that you don't even have to tie but I haven't put them in my new shoes yet. That will change before my next race. So I get them tied and get back going. Ok so now I'm mad. I just wasted time and now I have to catch back up to where I was. Unfortunately I did just that. I ran faster than normal to catch back up and lost my rhythm. I settle back in and keep going. I hit mile 1 at 8:16. Ok that is good. I am on track for my goal. The next mile was pretty much down one road and all flat. Some girls that I knew were just ahead of me and I used them to pace off of. I am making good time but I am laboring. I looked down and see 183 on my heart rate monitor. Not good. I make it to the second mile at right at 17 minutes. I'm still ok. I can crank out an 8 minute mile and hit 25 minutes. The last mile was a disaster. I believe in that mile I gave up running, eating and triathlon all at once. I was done altogether. I was making one minute promises to myself left and right. I wanted to stop and catch my breath but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. There was one long road until we turned in back to the finish and guess what happens again. Stupid shoelaces. The same shoe. Now I'm really mad. Mad at myself for not tying my shoes correctly and mad at my luck. I would say those 2 shoe re-ties cost me about 45 seconds. Not so much in actual time of having to tie my shoes but wasted time in catching back up and losing my rhythm. My pacing partners were way ahead of me now. I was too far back to catch up. I couldn't even catch the guy that was carrying water on a 5k that I HAD to beat. Stick a fork in me cause I was done. I limped my way to the finish line in 26:33. I was really pissed but you know what that is ok. After the race it looked like I took a shower with my running clothes on. A guy took pictures and posted them on the web and I was wet from head to toe. I had some bad luck that won't happen in every race and I was able to push myself and I didn't walk. The worst thing about my 5k was that I can run 9 minute miles comfortably but couldn't run just under that comfortably in my race. I will have to work on going out too fast. More races=more experience. All in all after the race I calmed down and I was okay but the bad luck didn't end. I was playing in the yard with the kids and went to kick a ball barefooted and kicked the ground first. The result.....

















Bruised toe.
It doesn't hurt as bad as it looks. I can still run on it.
I have to. I have someone in my next tri that I have to beat. I'm gunning for him and he was even at the 5k. Yes, he beat me but that won't be the case come October 10.