wow, it's been forever since I blogged. I managed 30 miles last week and I'm about to get 40 this week, after tomorrow's ten miler. I raced a 5k on Thanksgiving. That went pretty well. It was a little experience in staying calm in positive because I was really ticked about the starting situation. They've got 17,000 people entered in the race, and the race website promised starting corrals based on time, but no corrals. Just 17,000 people of all speeds, shapes, and sizes crammed onto J street in no particular order. I didn't want to be right on the line or anything, since there were some seriously fast people in the race and I certainly didn't need to start with them. I ended up about 8-10 people deep on the start line and the start was a zoo. I almost fell twice, there were all these really slow people ahead of me for at least a quarter mile, I passed a 7 year old kid whose father kept telling him to breathe.

Anyway, I got a little panicky with the starting situation but I mostly calmed down by about a half mile, and went through the mile right around 6:30 which was a little quicker than I planned. The second mile felt short and I went through in 13:04. Then I must have slowed down a bit the last mile, as my final time was 20:40. Later on, some of my teammates were thinking that the first and second mile marks were placed a little short. Who knows. I could have gone a little faster the last mile but I started to feel like I was going to dry heave so I slowed a bit.

I felt like my form was pretty good after a half mile. That first half mile I was pretty tweaked and I actually managed to generate pain in both shins. I must have been overstriding pretty badly. It was a good cue to get things under control and go back to concentrating on the pull. Once again, I think I had some difficulty with the faster pace at the end of the race. I had a moderate finishing kick, and I think I might have been pushing some, as I have had really tight calves since the race.

No more racing for a while. I'm looking at doing the whole local road race circuit next year, and it kicks off with a 10 miler in early March, so that might be my next race.