Dance Moms –> 5K

Dance Class

I survived!! It was super hard for me (not physically, but the memorization aspect!) and I was reminded that I have no talent in this arena. Ha!! But it was still kind of fun. Most of the ladies there had dance backgrounds and were ROCKING IT. Seriously it was impressive to watch! It felt like many of them were learning to memorize a poem their native tongue, and I was learning one in a totally unfamiliar language. Honestly though, it didn’t matter. I’m still glad I went! I do not plan on signing up to learn the parent dance mostly because I think it would be a bit stressful AND take up time I would rather devote to other things, but maybe another year.

(It also gave me huge appreciation for A jumping into dance this year, not to mention how quickly she memorizes/picks things up compared to me!!)

I was home by 8:30 — thankfully the class did not last until 9 as initially advertised! — and went to bed before 10 because I had a 5K this morning!

5K Race Report

The quick version since I need to take G to piano soon 🙂

I went into this race with lowish expectations because I did not taper at all — I asked my coach and he preferred I just ‘run through’ this one since I’m really targeting a half marathon in a month. I wore AlphaFlys (the original version) and ate a bit at home at ~6 AM (1/2 bagel with pb) and then took a caffeinated GU liquid endurance (these are my preferred gel) 5 min before go time.

I did a ~2 mi warmup. It was 60F and sunny which felt really nice. Then I met up with 2 of my running friends — the super fast friend I’ve mentioned a bunch and another girl who comes to our Mon/Wed runs quite often! This (along with the promise of rare good weather for a local race . . . ) was what motivated me to sign up in the first place.

During the race itself, I wasn’t exactly sure how to pace myself. I thought maybe 7:30 would be about right. My PR was set in 2010 in Durham NC — I ran 22:47 at age 29 (well, almost 30).

The race was small and had a ton of teens, as it was to honor the death of a local teen who died during ROTC training (it was a tragic story, and his family set up this 5K to help fund a scholarship in his name).

We set off and I felt really good! I waved to my fast friend as she went around the turnaround. My watch told me my first mile was 7:21. I was happy with that and didn’t feel super out of breath, so I tried to keep it steady for mile 2. 7:18. By the end of mile 2, I told myself okay — just 2 songs left at this pace. I didn’t let myself look at my watch because I kept promising myself it would be a ‘treat’ when the second song ended (mind games, haha). Mile 3 was 7:15 and by then I was like okay, I feel pretty done now. I could see the finish and did the last part at 7:03 (well, according to my watch). I actually kept going past the finish chute because my watch said 3.07 and I wanted the PR to count for strava and it STILL failed (3.1 on my watch but I guess that still wasn’t long enough to satisfy the app! Ahh well, it was a “2 mi PR” according to my watch anyway.)

I wish I had heart rate data but it didn’t pick up – was on cadence lock the whole time, meaning it was matching to my steps rather than my actual HR. Ahh well. But even though I was working hard, I was smiling at the end and not feeling terrible and that made me happy.

PR (lifetime!) –> 22:30 chip time / 22:36 gun time, 7:16/mi pace

It was a tiiiiiiny race so I got 2nd overall! 1st (shown below) was my awesome fast friend who hopefully will not kill me for posting this. She has been a huge inspiration in my running journey and it was fun to be in a pic with her.

If you look closely at my upper R leg (left in the picture as you look at it), you can still see the bump/swollen area from my accident! But I think it’s just like . . calcified tissue at this point? It doesn’t impact my strength or stride and (SO GRATEFUL) I am running pain free.

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Very glad I signed up for this (rather spur-of-the-moment) race! Hopefully more PRs to come! I know I am at an age where I will not see improvement for all that long so I am really trying to enjoy it now.