Big week, course record + first "A" race of 2010 :)

Well, the Tom Petty/ZZ Top concert we were going to go to tonight has been postponed due to Tom Petty having a throat infection :(..sooo who knows when it/if will be re-scheduled but now I'm relaxing at home drinking some yummy iced coffee and will be in bed around my usual time instead of in downtown Phoenix all night, lol ;)

This past week was a super challenging week with 4 hard days, a total of 91 miles and 21.5 hours of total training! Yesterday I raced the Moon Valley Grasshopper Bridge 5k and had a great time. I saw some of my friends, hung out after the race for the nice award ceremony and enjoyed good food and drinks compared to what you get after most races :) I wanted to race pretty much all out and see what kind of time I could get, hoping for well under 17 minutes even though I hadn't tapered at all for it. I ended up in no mans land a little ways off from the lead guys and couldn't quite surge enough to hang off the back of their pack. The course measured a bit long (3.16 according to my Garmin)...yes it may seem a bit weird to note an extra .06 but that could be a 20 second difference in a 5k! I probably just didn't run the tangents perfectly because it's a USATF certified course but anyway, my watch says my splits were 5:27, 5:20, 5:28 with the last bit at 4:51 pace :). My chip time was 16:56, almost 2 minutes faster than the course record and 9 seconds faster than any 5k I have run this year, so I'll take it. Paul Ruckel did a great job organizing the race and part of the course was on grass and had flags all over like a cross country race, with music in the background; lots of fun! All the proceeds from the race go toward the Phoenix Childrens Hospital so it's also for a great cause.

I'm feeling pretty good and looking forward to this week with nothing super hard until my first "A" race of this year, on Sunday morning in St. Paul, Minnesota. It's the USA Women's 10 Mile National Championship and my first USA Champs race of the year. I'm looking forward to it because it's a big weekend for racing. They also host the USA Men's Marathon Championships, USA Men's and Women's Master's Marathon Champs. It should be a fun weekend and to be quite honest I'm looking forward to being in a place with a high of 40 degrees cooler than the record heat we've been having here LOL :) I'm not tapering my volume for this race but I'm definitely toning down my intensity so my legs have some spunk come Sunday morning! It will be great to see where my fitness is 5 weeks out from the marathon. I've been working harder than I ever have before a marathon so I think Sunday will show me if it's working, especially if I have a fantastic race at the end of a 90 mile week!

Pic: Paul Ruckel and I yesterday at the race.

Quote for today: "You can’t hit a home run unless you step up to the plate. You can’t catch a fish unless you put your line in the water. You can’t reach your goals if you don’t try."- Kathy Seligman