Improvements All Week! Some Big, Some Small

After a good week of running fast in workouts and making big improvements in my workout speeds, I was looking forward to racing today. I ran the Santa Fund 5K race in Nashua. After a week of feeling good, my hip had tightened up again this morning. I did not have the good stride that I had all week, but still ran my best 5k race of the year. Unfortunately it was only a one second improvement from the race 2 weeks ago. I did 18:58. So my big improvements only resulted in a little improvement!

The time was 40 seconds slower than last year. I do now know that when my hip is off it slows me down. I never got going in the race and I lacked the looseness I had when running those workouts. This race was another struggle, although the first mile was 5:18 (a real short mile!) I wasn't up near the lead group like last year. I hit two miles in 11:30 so I thought I might be on a faster pace then I felt (but wasn't sure any course markings were accurate) but it was not to be. Jeff and Chris, passed me more than halfway into the race and they finished almost 40 seconds ahead of me. They were moving. I was plodding.

Now my body is all off on the left side: neck, back, sacrum, knee, etc. I have been letting it stay that way and I notice I can't sit straight when it gets this way. The positive is I get to go through the different routines tonight and see what works to put things back together again evenly.