Fit by Forty: A WIN! and almost a 5K PR.....feeling SURPRISED to say the least!

Don't you LOVE surprises? sometimes we all need a little boost...a little Pick me up, a word of encouragement, a good test result, a call from an old friend, a kind email.........or to win a 5K race you almost didn't do b/c you thought you were so out of shape!!

Because My iron is so low and I have only been running 27-35 miles a week the last couples months, I almost didn't go out for the Blue Lake 5k On saturday.
Since I got diagnosed with my ferritin levels at a 9 last month I haven't been runnin' so hot. I've been taking Iron like crazy, eating red meat 2-3 times a week (sometimes that means a cheeseburger from burgerville instead of my regular ground turkey burger:):), and trying to just go easy on myself.

This week I ran: (total of 30 miles with race)
Tuesday: 9x 400m on (only 4 miles total b/c I ran out of time), a little "mini" speed workout
Wed: went for a recovery run and felt surprisingly good..ended up doing 8 with 5 tempo in the middle
8:08-7:46, 7:40, 7:29, 7:05, 6:46-7:51, 8:00
really surprised myself. havn't done a tempo in 6mos!
thursday: promised to take it EASY but ended up running 6 at 7:45 pace.

this was all very surprising since the last few weeks Ive struggled regularily with 8:45 pace.....

Friday: 4 easy at 8:45 pace

So when Saturday rolled around, I was really questioning if I should bother. I probably used all my energy stores on wed/thurs this week. I don't think I can even run a sub 21min right now. I've hardly been running any miles (30 a week seems like so little when I WAS running 60-80 6mos ago). I had all these excuses in my head but decided I could just use it as a workout. Time doesn't matter....it will just be a good workout.

When I was driving to the race, I started to change the negative chatter in my head....I was reflecting back to the last 5K I did before my stress fracture before Boston....I was in shape to run a 19:30-40 then but got kidney stones that morning and ran a 20:03 and then almost rushed myself to emergency on the way home.....I felt jaded. I started to wonder if it was even remotely possible to go sub 20 this day?

My first response was No. Not even something to consider. BUT..........Then I heard myself reply "Nicole, how do you know if you don't even try? if you don't believe it's possible then of course it's not. Why are you limiting yourself? You run this body. You tell it what to do. Seize the opportunity. Pain is temporary and if you want it bad enough, you can make it happen".
With that, I decided to not think about numbers...but to get out and run...don't worry about pace, just RUN and see what happens-Don't count ANYthing out!!

I did my warm up and got to the start line. I saw a girl who looked very fast towing the front of the line.....I probably can't beat her...but...looking around, I thought I could take 2nd or 3rd maybe......(its a small race).

This year the 5K was chip timed which was awesome:)

the gun went off and away we went.

I glanced at my watch a few times and knew I was running low 6's but I felt good....my new strategy has been to just keep my body where my legs feel like they can handle that pace for a while and not let my breathing get labored in the first mile to mile and a half. basically listen to my BODY, not my watch:)

I never looked at my watch when the first mile went off...I was closing the gap on the lead female and decided to just hang there.
As we approached mile 1.5 I was only afoot behind her...she had slowed considerably and we were running quite a bit slower. I didn't want to pass her and regret it later....I still felt great so decided to embrace this "break" and just hold pace with her and make my move later. Around mile 1.75 a woman came up from behind me....now all 3 of us were running beside each other. I decided to make my move now and pull ahead.
I decided in that moment that I would WIN this race today.

At mile 2 I was just starting to feel the fatigue, but not nearly as bad as some other races...perfect timing! this is how a 5K should be.... i've got less than 7min of pain I thought, I can do this!:)( and to be honest it didn't really hurt til about 2.75)....

Still having NO idea what my mile splits were something in my GUT told me I was on target to break 20min!!! (weird thing......I didn't even THINK about what my mile splits were....gosh I really AM becoming less neurotic about my running! ha ha)

When I approached the 3 mile mark I gave it everything i had which according to my garmin wasn't much!!

I won the race in 19:50!!!!!!!

I can't tell you how EXCITED and STUNNED I was!!!
all I could say to my husband was "Wow! Low mileage works for me I guess!!!!, HA!"

it was just the boost I needed. I have a bit of a cold and am quite anemic so this made the win and time so much sweeter to me......I am JUST getting started! that sub 19 isn't far around the corner....I can almost TASTE it!!!! I believe in myself again!!!

I really love racing lately...no pressure on myself, believing in the impossible and having FUN!!!
It was fun to run this race as a RACE....and not pay attention to numbers...

Breakdown according to my Garmin:
Mile 1: 6:19
Mile 2: 6:34
Mile 3 6:29
last .1 6:09 pace
Final time 19:50
Believe in yourself! No limitations!