thirty-fifth (running club race)

I almost just slept in. I wanted to. We were late, but they started late.

Rocky Mountain Road Runners starts their monthly races based on pace/mile. You get a start time based on past races, so that the slowest start first, the faster start later, and hopefully everyone finishes pretty close together.

I think they tally points based on place and other factors, but I haven't run the races consistently.

Today was 5 miles. I stepped to the starting line and totally spaced that I needed to start my stopwatch. It took me a few seconds into the race to get to the stopwatch function, then delete yesterday's time, and then start it. Not good. 

I finished in about 30:55.

The end of the race was in a park, around a soccer field, and quite a few little kids and their parents were crossing the concrete path as we were trying to sprint to the finish. No casualties as far as I could tell. 

Definitely a good thing to get up and get that run in. I say that every time, but it really is a relief to keep going. With the warm up and cool down, I'm calling it a 6 mile day.

eighteenth

8 miles. 1:02:50

Another week! It always feels good to make it through. For some reason I have a hard time each week at the beginning, because I just can't believe that I will get the running in. I just have to take it one day and one week at a time. On days when I have a lot of time on my hands, I try and go for a run at the first time that I feel any motivation at all, since I never know if that will be as excited about running as I will get for the rest of the day. It has been working so far.

I am debating running the Bolder Boulder 10k. It's near the end of May and it might be a helpful race to gauge my fitness right before my official block of training starts. I'll probably decide before the end of next week.

If not, I might run my own 10k or 15k "race" and use it to set different training paces until I run an official race this summer.