I'm back!

I'm back from my blog hiatus, back from a nice camping vacation in Bryce Canyon, Grand Canyon, and Zion National Parks, and also back to training starting tomorrow.

But meanwhile, we did have a club 5K today, so of course I went. Before the 5K, I actually got up early (4:20!) and biked with my friends Sarah and Jessica as they did 12.5 miles in preparation for their first half marathon in a month. I wanted to racewalk with them, but my coach nixed that idea in a hurry. He might have said it wasn't very smart or something to that effect!

After the 12.5 miles, I drove over to the club 5K which started at 8 am. For the race, I was supposed to go somewhere in between all-out racing and taking it easy. Ummm, yeah...I pretty much did the whole thing at 90% effort, which I think is more than my coach intended. Had 28:38 at 5K on my Garmin; 29:41 at the end of the course (5.19K on Garmin). I'm not sure the course was really 5K (club members measured it with their Garmins) but I was somewhere around 29:00 I'd guess. Not too bad after a few weeks off!

After 2.5K in 14:15 on the Garmin, and a HR in the mid-160s, I thought it was looking like a nice day to race. I didn't push as hard as I could have, but I didn't let up either. HR was in the low 170s by the end of the race, and I felt surprisingly good. I could have gone faster. I guess my layoff hasn't hurt my speed any. Hopefully my iron levels are improving. I've been working on my technique, too, and today during the race I concentrated on bringing my hips through low, using my glutes, and pushing off my toes. It's not habit yet, but I do feel I'm getting smoother and more efficient.

Pictures and more about the race to come later. Meanwhile, duty calls. SO much to do after getting home from vacation Wednesday and working Thurs & Fri! Glad it's the weekend now, but there is still a lot to do around the house, and I have a few piano students this afternoon.

I'll also post pictures of the vacation later; we did lots of amazing hikes.

Garmin data from race here.