Wine Run Virtual Turkey Trot

My mom signed us up for a Virtual Turkey Trot so we could all run a Thanksgiving race whenever and wherever we wanted. Ty, the kids, and I went to Topeka for Thanksgiving because Ty's brother and sister-in-law were visiting from Florida. I worked Monday and Tuesday of Thanksgiving week but the kids had all week off school. The weekend before Thanksgiving we visited my parents and celebrated Thanksgiving on Sunday evening. Then we left the kids there so my parents could watch them those 2 days they were out of school but I worked. We went back Tuesday evening to pick them up and left from there for Topeka. When we were visiting that weekend I ended up going to Urgent Care because I was feeling pretty awful. They tested me for Covid which was negative (as I figured since I had just taken an at-home test which was negative on Thursday morning) and then treated me for a sinus and ear infection. I still wasn't feeling back to normal Wednesday but was excited to run the 5k in Pittsburg so I decided to go ahead with it, especially since I was going to run it more as a tempo run than a race. I figured it would be a bit on the slower side but I was okay with that. I could hear the wind really whipping outside and almost pushed the 5k back a day, but Ty encouraged me to go for it and I'm so glad he did! 

I decided to run a warm up to the Watco trail and run the race out and back on the paved trail. I took off and I could feel the gusts of wind at my back. I didn't plan it out with the wind in mind and realized early on that I'd be running back into the wind. I knew the first mile was wind aided but was still super surprised to run it in 6:45. I really didn't feel like I was running that fast and didn't feel uncomfortable at all. My  goal was just to run and enjoy myself and hoped to maybe average around 7:00 pace and be under 22 minutes since my virtual race in October was a little over 22 minutes. When I hit the turn around I saw I was at 10:40 which would be a 21:20 5k if I ran back at the same pace I had run out. I knew that wasn't going to happen with the strength of the wind but was excited that I would definitely be under 22 minutes. 

When I turned around the wind was even stronger than I was expecting. My 2nd mile was 7:02 and I told myself to drop back under 7:00 pace for my last mile. I had a strong headwind on the way back but the trail is a slight incline on the way out and a slight decline on the way back so I had the decline going for me. I told myself the decline was going to cancel out the wind. I knew that wasn't the case, but it helped me to think that. Each time I checked my pace I was still over 7:00 and as much as I pushed I couldn't seem to dip back under 7:00 pace. Finally with a half-mile to go I started to get rolling a bit better and was able to run 6:56 for my last mile. I finished out the last portion of the race in 6:33 pace which I was pleased with. I felt like I'd worked hard but didn't feel tired when I finished. I ran a cool down back to my parents' house and felt pretty good. I was surprised I never felt even a little sore and ran faster than normal the 3 days following the race.

This was the most pumped I've felt after a race in a long time. I was hoping for sub-22 but didn't expect to be much under if I was able to get under at all. Even with the wind and recovering from a sinus infection, I finished in 21:25! This may have been the only time I've ever been super excited to run a 21 minute 5k. The way I felt while doing it was huge. I think that's the main thing that had me excited. I've been struggling with my speed and just feeling flat and blah during road races, virtual or in-person, since getting the flu during the spring of 2020. I felt great during this and like I was pushing but wasn't really out of my comfort zone. I felt like I could have run faster but with my lack of speed work, I just didn't quite have another gear. I'm really hopeful I'm finally turning a corner. There have been quite a few points in the past 2 years when I started to feel like things were coming around only to go back to feeling blah a week later, but this time feels different. I really hope it is! I've gotten an itch to train for a spring marathon so I hope that's another good sign. When I was feeling off I didn't have any interest in trying to run a fast road race.