Elizabeth 8K

Last weekend I ran my very first 8K race!  The Elizabeth 8K is the oldest road race in Charlotte and goes through my beautiful neighborhood.  This year was it's 31st year!  I really wanted to run it last year, but my extreme morning sickness during the early weeks of my pregnancy meant that I was nowhere near being ready to run it.

For whatever reason I was SUPER nervous for this race.  As I mentioned, I had never raced an 8K before and actually in my post baby #2 running the farthest I had run was 4 miles.  So this was going to be a new experience all around.  I couldn't sleep the night before and couldn't even finish my coffee the morning of!  I was a jumble of nerves during my 10 minute walk to the starting line.  (Yep, a 10 minute walk to the starting line, that was awesome!)  Soon enough about 700-800 other runners were lined up and we were off!  By comparison, the Shamrock Shuffle had under 200 people so I am glad I started with such a tiny race to get my feet wet again!

I had some technical difficulty when the gun first went off.  My Apple Watch wouldn't connect with my iPhone so I had to get my phone out while running to start my running app.  Of course that never happened before so it figures it would happen during the race.  Then I accidentally paused my playlist and had to get my phone out again.  I was a mess!  Once I got myself sorted, I fell into a quicker pace than I had run my previous 5K.  I was consistently running 9:55/9:56, which I was happy with, considering my absolute current lack of running shape.  I found a girl who was running the same pace as me and didn't let her out of my site.

The second half of the race though, holy hills!!!  I mentioned in my last blog that I haven't incorporated any specific hill training into my running yet.  I'm just working on building up a base and very gradually increasing my weekly mileage so I don't get injured.  The hills kind of killed me in this race. Every time I thought they were over, another one was around the bend.  I still managed to sprint past a few people at the very end so that always feels good!  I felt awesome when the race was over!  I was, however, sad not to see my family at the finish.  My almost 4 year old was taking too long to leave the house so they missed my whole race!

I ended up having a 10:16/mile pace for this race.  Much like the Shamrock Shuffle 5K I ran a few weeks ago, I went into this race with zero time expectations.  I only have the goal of finishing these races without walking and attempting to stay consistent with my splits. Now next year I will have times to work on beating, which I have no doubt will happen because I will have more than 2 months of running under my belt!

I'm specifically training for the my next race:  the Spartan Sprint (next week!!) so I used these two races to check in on my progress.  Last year's Spartan Sprint in Charlotte was 6 miles.  You don't run the whole distance straight through though because you have obstacles (and burpees when you fail the obstacle) all along the race. I'm working on my running so I can cut off some time from last year's race.  I actually do have a time goal for the Spartan in mind and am already getting slightly nervous for the obstacles I think I will see in my race!

Return to Running and Shamrock Shuffle 5k

As most of you know, I'm a former runner who suffered an injury related to having my first son.  I spent months in physical therapy, years doing Beachbody programs to get my body strong again and started slowly running Dec 2015 only to get pregnant the following month and have to stop running again.  This January, after another round of weeks of at home physical therapy and weeks of Beachbody workouts, I started running again.  I began with the Couch to 10K app to slowly ease my body into running.  It quickly became apparent that I was in MUCH better shape than I had previously thought.  I worked out my entire pregnancy up until 3 days before I went into labor and got started again with a very modified version of 21 Day Fix at 5 weeks postpartum.

I have been doing 4 runs per week:  longer runs on the weekend and shorter runs with the jogging stroller on Tuesdays and Thursdays while my son is at preschool.  I am also doing the resistance workouts to P90X 3 days a week and keeping up with my regular hot yoga practice.  It's important for me to build up my strength as well as improve my running.  Plus I just love weights!!

My Spartan Sprint is coming up on April 8th so I decided to set myself a shorter goal before the Spartan to see if I could actually run a whole 5K without stopping.  I decided on the March 11th Shamrock Shuffle 5K about 10 minutes away from my house here in Charlotte.  That race seemed small and no pressure and would offer me a good chance to get my feet wet in the racing world again.  Race day weather was colder than it had been down here for a few weeks (of course) so I bundled up a bit in warmer clothes instead of the cute Shamrock leggings that I had planned to wear.  I arrived with plenty of time to pick up my packet, hit the bathroom and stretch.  Then suddenly we were started and in my nervous excitement I had my Beats wireless headphones on backwards!

Prior to the race I had been running about 11:30 minute miles.  Yes, very slow, but remember I had only been running for about 6 weeks after basically taking 5 years off, two pregnancies and lots of PT.  When my running app told me that my race day pace was 10:30 after the first mile I was like "what!"...I was going much faster than I had anticipated.  The race was lots of fun and I felt GREAT.  It was such a shot of adrenaline to participate in a race.  I forgot about that!  I'm happy to say that I did in fact run the whole thing, despite the hilly course.  Towards the end I started using my old high school cross country tricks of focusing on a person in front of me and passing them.  By the end of the race I was blowing past all of my targets.  I finished with a time of 32:30.  Not great by any means but better than I had anticipated.  I can see plenty of room for time improvement at upcoming races too!  Plus I haven't even done any speed work or hill work, which I know will come once I get a good endurance base going.

Up next: I have an 8K on Saturday!  www.elizabeth8k.com  I am excited for this challenge because I having run this distance yet either in my post baby running life!  I look forward to letting you guys know how this one goes!