I Love to Run Races

I finally got around to creating a blog! I figured this would be a good way to track my training and since running is such a large part of my life, a running blog makes sense.

Today, I counted all the events that I would like to do this year. I counted at least 25 events that I am considering. I must love to run races so I'm not going to worry about it and decided that would be the title of my blog and my first post. I just wish I didn't get a shirt for every race. At 25 races per year, shirts can accumulate quite quickly and Good Will is the benefactor of many of those shirts.

The second race of the year is tomorrow. It is the St. Patrick's Day 5K and will be my second 5K for the year. This 5K was the very first race I ran after High School. I ran it in 1998 (never raced between 1988 and 1998) and finished 58th of 529 runners with a time of 21:22. In 1999, I slowed down quite a bit, 142 of 545 with a time of 24:18. I've run this race every year. After I lost 20 lbs on the Body for Life Program in 2001, my times for 2002-2005 have been sub-20 min with a PR for this course of 19:44 in 2004. I think it is time to break this race PR tomorrow! Overall, my PR for a 5K is 18:50 in 2003, but I'm not sure if I am up to that tomorrow. Anything can happen though. I will see how it goes.

I'm training for the Flying Pig marathon on May 7th. My training this week has been going well, but the previous 2 weeks were tough. My left ankle was bothering me after my long runs, I was tired a lot, and my legs never felt recovered. Things seem to be turning around this week so I'm hoping I can have a good race tomorrow. I've been feeling better this week, but held back on Tuesday's run as sort of a mini-taper before the event.