Recent happenings

Ran a 5km race a couple weeks back and knocked 10 seconds off the PB, which is pretty awesome. What was significantly less awesome was when I saw photos from that race. My new running goal, is to not look so horrible in pictures. I think it will involve being faster. Or bribing photographers to later photoshop me so I don't look so slow. I'm seriously wondering if race photographers somehow know when to take a photo so it's the least flattering pic ever.

I will say one of the more frustrating things about smaller (and possibly shorter) races is that sometimes...sometimes people don't know how to place themselves at the start line. And not being fast as blazes, I end up getting caught behind runners that are either overly optimistic about how fast they are, or don't understand that in a race with 700 people, if you are a 27 minute 5 km runner you shouldn't be right behind the skinny dudes with no socks on at the startline. Not that I overheard someone say "yeah, my dad is hoping for around 27 minutes so he's up there somewhere" from the girl behind me a minute before the start or anything. And it wasn't like I was far back...at least, I don't think. I thought I was appropriately placed. So that was a bit frustrating. I need to know who is around my pace for these local ones so at least I can be around them at the start. That way if I'm going to suffer, we all suffer.

On April 29th I'm running my next half marathon. The goal is to get another minute or so off my time, though it will depend on the weather, I think. The course is hilly, which isn't terribly helpful, but it's local and I'm poor. That's not really a great sales job for the race there, is it? Sadly, it's true though - it's not a fast course. We'll see though. My coach thinks I can do it. I think a lot of it for me has to be getting the right mental space for it. Right now in my running...'career' 5 minute kms in a half seems really fast, at least, in my head in seems fast. And right now I'm supposed to race just a little slower than than per kilometre. And I think I can definitely psych myself out if I get stuck on it being kind of fast, and not think that I can actually do it. So we'll see how it goes. Hopefully the weather will be better than last year, when it was cold and began to rain part way through. The last two halfs I've done have been in the rain, and I'm kind of not loving it. Bring on the overcast, cool mornings!