Since about Tuesday of last week I have been having some issues with tightness and soreness in my left leg. Mostly centered in my glut and lateral knee, I realized it was probably my IT band and started doing some area specific stretches a few times a day to help. I had planned on doing a 7 mile run Wednesday but cut it short at just over 6 miles because it was still feeling pretty tight, and decided to take Thursday and Friday off to try and loosen up that leg before the race Saturday.
Sitting in the car for five hours on the drive down to Homer on Thursday did not help the healing process but instead caused even more tightness and and my leg was just constantly aching over the course of Thursday and Friday. I stretched thoroughly Friday night and Saturday morning before the race, but still felt a general tightness running along the outside edge of the leg while running.
I ran the first mile a little faster than I had planned but was still feeling great through miles two and three. From mile four on I started to feel a lot of fatigue in my legs and the last mile it was pretty tough to keep my pace under 7:45 m/mile. My goal has been to stay under 7:30 the entire race and to finish in under 45 minutes. My time was 45:39 so not too far off but I'm excited to try and beat that time in my next 10k sometime in the future.
Overall it was a fun experience and I'm so glad I made it down for the race! I'll mostly be focusing on training for the Her Tern Half Marathon, which is three weeks from today. I'm not trying to do anything other than finish the race while enjoying myself and enjoying my first half-marathon experience; hopefully I'll remember that when race day comes around.
According to my Garmin watch I beat my previous 5k PR (from the Heart Run), which is pretty exciting. I'm looking forward to racing a 5k at some point soon to see if I can get cut off even more time.
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