Swoon Style and Home: Race Recap: 2015 Athletes Closet January 5K & 2015 Training Recap

Happy Monday. One more week until we have a day off. It's funny how hard it is to get back into the swing of things every January. But here we are.

I have a two-fer today - a little race recap for a pretty tough race and a recap of my training thus far into 2015.

1. Race Recap: 2015 Athletes Closet Winter Series January 5K.

I like to start off the year with a race, and this was the one I chose: the Athletes Closet Winter Series January 5K. It was on January 3 and was hosted by a local running company. It was a very small field - about 70 people or so. And the course was super hilly - just constant up or down and nothing really in between. My race plan was to hit the first mile at my current 5K PR pace (which was about 7:30/mile) and then just race the remaining two miles.

For the first time in a long time, I didn't PR at this race. My 5K PR is 23:15 from the 2013 Medford Lakes Turkey Trot. My time at this race was 23:49 (7:40 pace). Given the fact that this course was so challenging and the turkey trot was pancake flat, I am still pretty psyched with my time. Oh, and hey, it always helps when you get an award! That time was good enough for me to nab 2nd place in my age group. I got a medal!

I was the 15th runner to finish overall and the 6th woman. Not too shabby. Bill also ran and got 2nd in his age group and was the 5th to finish overall. yay!

I was thisclose to getting 1st in my age group, but right before the finish, a girl in my age group passed me. She was cooking and I was spent. Bill was trying to cheer me and warn me that it was happening, but I didn't appreciate it because I had my headphones in and I was also just done and completely beat. However, as I got closer to the chute, I heard heavy footfalls behind me and was not about to let someone else pass me. I literally body checked the guy behind me and prevented him from passing me in the chute. Turns out, he paced off of me the entire race. What a jerk move to try to pass me at the very last second ... dude. Anyway, here's a picture to show how close it was. The girl finished in 23:47, I finished in 23:49 and the dude finished in 23:50. A real nail biter.

2. 2015 Training Recap: weeks 1-2

Training has been going pretty well. I run about 5-6 days per week and have 1-2 rest days, swim days or bike days (my coach schedules my "rest" day but says I can either swim 1400 yards or bike 30 minutes endurance pace on those days). Here's what I've been up to:

January 1-11: 7:18:76 hours

Swam: 1400 yards/32:50 minutes

Biked: 1:00:03 hours (all on trainer)

Ran: 38.33 miles/5:46:23 hours

As you can see, it's all about the run. The first week in January, I had a long run on New Years Day, which was great. Then an easy recovery run, the 5K race and a "rest" day where I biked. The New Years Day run was 90 minutes, which for me was 10.2 miles. I warmed up with my typical long run breakfast: oatmeal with mashed bananas, diluted Gatorade and a plain mini bagel. Bland as hell. But it works.

The second week was about the same: an easy run, a walk/run, a day of speedwork, a "rest" day, a long run, another rest day and then a combo endurance/tempo run.

The notable things in this week: (1) I had to hop on the treadmill again and (2) I made it back to the pool! First, it has been really cold lately. I don't mind the cold - at all - but there comes a point where the cold is just too cold for running. So this happened instead:

I promised myself that come hell or highwater, I would get my butt in the pool this week, and I did. I swam and it felt really good. I need to ask my coach to just schedule a day of swimming so that I can't opt out. Swimming is good for me in every way. My runs were good too! My long run was supposed to be 90 minutes, but it was snowing pretty hard, so I only made it about 75. Yesterday, my endurance/tempo run was really cold. We are talking 18 degrees at the start and a balmy 21 degrees when I finished. So cold that I had to use my face cover thing for half the run to cover my nose and mouth and at the end of the run it had ice on it. It was a really tough run: 30 minutes at endurance pace and then 3 miles at 8:00 pace. I hit 8:00, 7:58 and then that last mile was all uphill, so I could only push to 8:25 or so. Still, when the temp looks like the below, any run outside is a win in my book.