I Might Not Suck Afterall!

Does this blog post's title make you laugh?  It should, but it's also serious.  It was an honor to be asked to participate in Ragnar on Bonk Republic.  (Did I tell you that's the team name?  Sorry if I left that out.  It's cute, right?!)  Anyway, being asked to be part of a team where I'm the only non-member of the Coast Guard represents an important challenge: to not suck!  I was asked (or at least I think I was asked) because I'm a halfway decent runner who could help the team do well.  Maybe I was asked because I'm fun to be around, or maybe it was because of my bubbly personality.  Who knows!  Haha!  Well, this whole stress fracture situation really had me wondering if I'd be back in shape and able to perform at a level that didn't bite.  I've been tracking my runs, as you should know from a previous blog post, and yesterday I got some validation at the Bridge Buster 5k.

If you're not a runner, you might not get that bridges are a pain; they're a challenge, and they will likely make you think that you will die before you finish running up, over, and down it.  Oh, did I mention that yesterday's 5k had runners doing this twice?!  Yup, you read that right!

I haven't run bridges in a while.  Probably since May or June.  Bridges just wipe you out and get your lungs burning.  Knowing that I'd have to do the "up & over" routine twice, I told myself that if my overall race pace was under 8 minutes per mile, I'd be happy.  That wouldn't be a great pace (for me), but I'd deal with it knowing that the "up" portion of the bridge would slow me down and kick my butt.

Are you dieing to know what happened?!  Ok, here's the skinny of it: my first mile was really, really good.  7:14 min per mile according to RunKeeper.  That was really faster than I had planned to start, but it felt good.  Of course, that was prior to any part of the bridge.  My second mile was sort of a disaster, and you know why: the damn bridge!  7:51 min per mile was the pace.  Blows!  Literally - the wind was blowing right into me as I tackled the first "up & over" part of the bridge (heading east).  It was strong, and gave you that feeling of going nowhere fast.  The good news is that upon reaching the turn-around point after getting to the east side of the bridge's base, the third mile turned out better: 7:38 min per mile pace.

End result: 7:31 min per mile (according to RunKeeper)!  I didn't suck!!!  Hooray!