Arrrrrrrrgh!
The email came on Saturday, before the snow even fell, that the fourth and final race of the Passaic County Technical Institute 5K series had been postponed until March 11.
Not only was I looking forward to getting the damn thing over with and never committing to a race series again, but the new date clashed with my own personal schedule. This would mean that, in the end, I will have spent $100 on three small races on a difficult course that was incorrectly measured and I will have little to show for it because I will miss the finale.
Never one to waste valuable training, I did my own personal 5K again on Sunday, just as I had last month when the bitter cold shut down my intended post-marathon 5K.
Perhaps I can blame it on the strong wind or the steadily inclining point-to-point course I laid out, but it ended up being relatively bad anyway. And it is probably my own fault for being way too inside my head, with my heart never really into it, no matter how much I convinced myself I was pushing with all my might.
The first mile had the biggest hill, so I surprised myself with a 5:56. I thought I was keeping my leg turnover consistent, so the 6:11 of the second mile was a bit upsetting. With only one more mile to go along the steady incline of River Road in Parsippany, I could not seem to pick up the momentum at all, as I hit mile three with another 6:11, finishing out the 3.1-mile course with 18:57 as my final time. Not exactly the kind of result for which I was training.
On the other hand, perhaps my mind was not really in the game because I am simultaneously training for a March half-marathon, so this "race" was actually the first three miles of a 15-mile long run; and the last thing I wanted was to be burned out with 12 more miles to go. I managed to do those next 12 miles at a pace in the mid-7s, which bodes well for my long game.
And then...
Aaaarrrrrrrrrrghhhh!!!!
Just when I had made my peace with my freedom from the race series, another email came Monday morning - the race was re-re-scheduled for March 4. A date on which I am completely available. Which means this thing is not over yet...and I have to do two more weeks of speed training.
My whole lower half hurts thinking about it.
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