First Post Race Run

With only one day off in between my two 5k race weekend and my first post-race run, I knew I was going to be hurting. After Sunday's race, although I was elated, my hips were also pretty sore, which wasn't helped by a two hour drive home. I was so tired on Sunday night, once the adrenaline and excitement wore off, I could barely move off the couch to make myself some dinner - which was key, since I was STARVING. But eventually I fed myself and spent yesterday at work taking Advil and resting, and then made sure to do some yoga. I slathered on the BioFreeze. I even found my hip stretches from PT and stretched out my hips - I forgot how much some of those stretches could actually hurt!

When I woke up this morning to another gloomy, rainy day, I figured I would put off my run until lunch to give the Advil a chance to kick in and the temperature to warm up a bit. Coach J had told me to run my usual 3.4 miles, but not worry about how fast I got there. Uh, no problem there, since my body was definitely not prepared to let me run very fast.

Although I wasn't expecting much, today's run definitely wasn't great. For the last mile, I actually felt halfway decent - not too tired and my muscles were sore, but warm enough to keep going. But those first two and a half-ish miles were brutal. It was the first time during a run that I really wanted to cry. I felt like there was no cushioning left in my hips and knees, so that every step I took hurt. I took a walking break right after the first half mile because I wanted to take my fleece off - usually, I can do this and run at the same time, but I was so tired, I didn't think I could manage it today. So I walked for a couple of minutes and then ran the rest of the way, for a total of about 40 minutes. MapMyRun tells me I was at about an 11:43 pace, which is actually faster than I thought I was running.

But, I tell myself that the important thing is that I did get out there and run today, no matter how much I was hurting. So now I'm back to icing and Advil, and hoping that another day of rest will make for a great run on Thursday.