Night Flight 5K & Lots of Life Stuff

Well Hello there.  It's been way too long since I blogged I know.  But instead of doing a lot of triathlon training, I've been kind of training at this thing called life.

My world has been hectic to say the least and I've been dealing with things I've just never really had to deal with before.  I won't go into a lot of detail, but my Dad is very, very sick.  I've spent a lot of time over the last few weeks traveling back and forth between New Mexico (where my parents live), Texas (where he was in ICU) and Kansas City.  The situation is somewhat stabilized, but still not good. 

I've been back home for a couple of weeks and trying to get back into a routine and use exercise as my outlet, but it's still been difficult.  Other than a few runs here and there I basically didn't do much for about a month.  No swimming and no biking for a month.  I finally got in a couple of short swims and bikes last week and it felt good. 

This past weekend should have been my 2nd 70.3, but instead of being there I was cheering my friends on from home.  It was totally the right decision (which I made a couple of months ago) to not even attempt it; but it still stung a little as I watched everyone's posts and updates on FB.  But it's just a race and there will be more. 

Since we last met I've done a total of two races.  I did a half marathon on May 10th which seems a million years ago.  The thought of a half seems impossible at the moment.  I did that race and then went home quickly, showered and headed to New Mexico after.  The race went ok, but wasn't one of my best.  It was the third in the 39.3 series however which was 3 half marathons in 5 weeks.  I even got a special medal for completing the series.

Me with my Running with the Cows Half Medal and 39.3 Series Medal

Then, this past weekend Jim and I kind of spontaneously decided to do a local nighttime 5K.  The Lee's Summit Night Flight.  We've both done it a couple of times before but it had been a few years.  The race doesn't start til 9pm so it's kind of a difficult day.  You don't want to eat too much so you don't feel crappy during the race.  So it seems like you go into it kind of starving.  I honestly wasn't sure if I could even run 3.1 miles.  I couldn't believe I was saying that but it was true.  And in the end, I did have to take two quick walk breaks during the race....oh well. 

One of Jim's running friends Paul was the one who encouraged us to do it.  So he and Jim decided to basically run from the house to the race to "warm-up".  It's about 3 miles.  I chose to just drive.  I waited in the car until about 10 minutes before the race and did a few light stretches...no warm up for me...I was afraid I couldn't get through the 3 miles lol, I didn't need to add any distance.

Right before the race I found one of my tri friends and started chatting with her.  We ended up running most of the race together, which was good, because I think I probably ran a lot faster than I would have on my own.  We stuck together for the first 2.5 miles or so, but toward the end we had a long uphill climb and I just couldn't hold on to my pace.

In the few runs I've done at home lately I've struggled and had to work really hard to maintain an 11:30-12:00 min pace and that has been on 3 and 4 mile runs.  So I didn't expect much.  I figured I'd be super lucky if I managed to break 11 minutes Friday night.  In the end I actually finished with a 10:15 pace (31:45 finish time) and I was actually pretty happy with that.  I certainly hadn't been doing any speed training and I've just been completely wiped out lately so I was pretty happy with the race results overall.  It was far better than I thought I'd do. 

I met up with Jim after the race and he'd had another great race.  5th place overall and 1st in his age group. Jim's friend Paul also set a huge new PR.  So I guess it was a pretty good night for all of us. 

That's all for now.  What's been new with you the last month or so???