First race of the season

So today I ran in the ENDURrace 5km. Unfortunately for all of us running, it decided to snow after many, many nice days in a row. The snow/cold wasn't so bad, but the wind pretty much sucked. But, we all survived and everyone seemed pretty happy after. This is the first race in a 2-race series. There is an 8km next Saturday evening. I figured out fairly soon after I started that I was wearing too much. I just didn't want to be cold and you would think I would know how much to wear considering I ran all winter outside, but it didn't work out so well. There were 3 hills in it, the last one being the killer long one. I was feeling pretty good and passed a lot of people on the hills (I do a lot of training on hills so I would say I'm fairly good with them). At the very end a girl passed me but wasn't going much faster than me so I sprinted to try to catch her and I did catch her but then she realized that I was gonna beat her and she sped up and I just couldn't stay that fast for the 5 seconds longer it would have been for me to beat her. It was a good challenge though.

My time was 26:16 which is ok, but not what I used to do. I was happy with it because it's the fastest I've been able to run this year so far for a 5km. I was also happy because I found out when the results went up that I had placed 2nd in my category (female age 25-29). I have actually placed every time I've run this race, so I'm happy that I am still running well, even though my training has changed. I was running almost as fast as I could the whole time.

So, overall, I'm pretty happy with how everything went today (other than the snow!). Ryan was happy with his run as well, though it's much tougher for him to place in his category because there are a lot of men competing who are very fast. The only downside for us now is that we both have sore throats/lots of coughing from breathing hard in the cold air. I was coughing so much I actually have given myself the hiccups. I also get sinus issues after this race every time I run in it. So, we are sniffing and coughing and planning a relaxing movie night! It's a small price to pay for all the benefits of doing this kind of exercise though. Off to the next race!