The day started off with a bang because I picked my car up from the mechanic after a diagnosis of needing new struts. $600 later, I was broke, but at least I had new struts to beat up on the trails this summer…. right?! (Trying to stay positive here!) Anyway, after that mental beat down, I headed down to Denver.
Saturday was gorgeous and with record highs of almost 80, we were all able to wear pretty much whatever we wanted for the run. And… we pretty much did 🙂 I decided against the tutu because I didn’t want to deal with the extra suffering, so I ended up wearing my green Oiselle shorts. Love the shorts, but shortly realized that I could have worn the damn tutu since I wasn’t going to be doing much running. (That’s foreshadowing, in case you wondered!)
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| Me, Cindy, Craig, and Joey This was Joey’s first ever race! |
Since we were all used to much larger races, we got to City Park super early for packet pickup. We absolutely didn’t need to, so we had lots of time to kill wandering around before the start. Not to worry though– we found many things to amuse us. For example:
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| Cindy and the geese |
Backstory: One time, my dear friend Cindy accidentally ran over some geese. Like, they totally didn’t get out of the road and she ran right over them! Ever since, we’ve called her a bird-killer (which is ironic since she is the only veggie of the group!) and tease her mercilessly. In fact, I’m pretty sure these geese told me that they were getting ready to stage a coup d’etat and attack Cindy during her sleep. Pretty sure.
This might have happened also:
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| Oh, Craig. |
Anyway, after amusing ourselves for awhile, we all lined up to start. Craig, Cindy, and I had all registered for the 10k, and Joey was going to do the 5k. It hit 10am, everyone started running, and we were off!
Only, not so much. About .75 miles into the whole thing, my foot started screaming at me! As I mentioned a few weeks back, I’m battling some awesome plantar fasciitis. I had thought I was being reasonable enough by taking the entire last week off from running and rolling my foot out with an iced water bottle. Apparently my tendon had other ideas. Usually, I’m pretty stubborn and I like to think I have a high threshold for pain, but this was brutal. At first I told Cindy that I would just deal with it– after all, it was only 6.2 miles, right? I could cope with anything for an hour!
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| Yes, the dog is carrying beer! |
But then, as I kept running, I realized I was being really stupid, and all in the name of what? An Irish-loving 10k? Call me crazy, but that’s probably not worth it! I mulled this over for a bit, hobbling along my merry way, and around 1.5 miles, I decided to call it. I was going to officially DNF my first ever race. I told Cindy and Craig to head on without me, pulled over to the side, and started walking.
Not gonna lie, I was pissed!
I kept walking because, really, what else could I do? I had to get back to the finish line somehow. Of course, my stubborn streak reared its head back up, and right around 2 miles, I struck a bargain with my foot: if it would just simmer down and let me run a bit more, I would agree to cut out at the 5k instead of completing the entire 10k. Luckily, this race was a looped race, 2 laps for the 10k, so that seemed like an easy compromise. I trotted off and although it hurt, I at least managed to run a whopping 2 of my 3.1 miles! (Small victories, people!)
After I finished, I had some time to kill so I lounged around the sun and watching Joey finish his first EVER 5k around 45 minutes. Craig and Cindy trotted in from their 10k just after an hour (For the record, my official email results put me at 33: XX for the 5k…not terrible considering I walked the middle chunk.) I was very proud of all of my friends, but still… I was cranky.
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| Blurry, because clearly, Craig is running FAST!:) |
In fact, this whole foot thing kind of ruined the rest of my weekend! It put me in a mood on Saturday, and just irritated me on Sunday. I think the frustrating part of this entire PF drama is that there is not a lot I can do. I’m already icing, I’m already using the good ol’ Ibuprofen, and I just ordered The Sock. I was in the process of looking for a pair of more minimal running shoes since my feet feel great in my Pace Gloves, but after the $600 blow with my car, I had originally decided to hold on the shoes. My friends, I think the holding pattern is over. I’m going shoe shopping!