I had my 5 miler yesterday and it went amazing, WAY better than I could have dreamed!

 Here’s the short story: I had had a LONG week, ran too much, was too tired, and Friday I needed to go home and rest up for the race. I had done a long run and speedwork, and Thursday I wobbled home in pain (very late!). I was also planning on picking up my bib and making a playlist for the race on my new mp3 player. Well, the resting I needed never happened. At 5 pm on Friday I found out I had tickets for Shakespeare in the Park, and you don’t ever say no to those, they’re very very hard to come by… It was pouring and I needed to sleep, but I decided you only live once and I was going. I seem to live by Bon Jovi’s “live when I alive, sleep when I am dead”… I was definitely messing up the race, but so be it! I packed a ton of carbs and went to see the play, and it was totally worth it!!!!

 When I got home, I was frozen cold, very thirsty, tired and still had to work on the playlist!!! So, I slept very very little and headed to the race. My plan was to do three 8 minute miles and then push the last two. I had done a 10k three weeks before and the average pace was 8:13 miles per minute… so 8 mm was hopeful enough. My 5 miler PR was 38:38 (7:43 mm average) but that was last year, one week before the marathon, when I was peaking and in the best shape of my life. It was impossible to beat that. No.

The race was painful, I was thirsty after 200 meters, it was hot, humid and my legs were whining after half a mile. So I tried to relax and keep a conservative pace… how I got a PR in those conditions is still a mystery. I ended up doing 38:34 (7:42mm)… insane. I still can’t get over it.

I seriously could not have been less prepared. All that helped me was a cup of Starbucks and the fact that I had given up and relaxed and run conservatively, but still… a PR???

 It’s happened a few times that I didn’t sleep much and was too tired and I did really well, way better than expected… Did this ever happen to anyone else??