Firecracker 5k

We went to my parents' house for the 4th of July. The night before July 4th I was looking at the schedule of events for the 4th and saw they moved the Firecracker 5k back to the morning of the 4th. They had it in the evening of the 3rd for a while. I was talking to Thomas about it and he had been planning to run a tempo that day anyway so we decided to run the race. I had just packed trail shoes and an older pair of running shoes for the trip, but I did have festive running clothes to wear. Dad drove us to the race which is at a golf course with the race being about half on a golf cart path and the other half on grass. It's a 2 loop course which I actually really like. We've run the course quite a few times before. I knew since I was just 2 weeks post marathon, I wouldn't be fast, but I thought it would be more fun than running by myself later in the day. When we signed up for the race they told us they were running low on pins and only gave us each one. We were laughing about how we'd have to just hang them off our shirts. I saw a running friend in the parking lot and asked him if he happened to have any pins in his car. He found one and gave it to me and then was nice enough to give Thomas one of the pins from his bib so we would each have 2. Then we did a mile warm up before the race and when Thomas stopped at a porta potty, I worked on stretching out my heel/ankle because it was hurting quite a bit during the warm up. 

My festive outfit for the race!

The person in charge of the race was talking and then just shot the gun off without a countdown which was a surprise and I didn't get off the start very quickly. There were people in front of me still just standing there. There were a few women ahead of me, but by the time we turned off the first straight away I had moved into first female. I looked at my watch a couple times, curious about my pace and saw I was running around my half-marathon pace. I figured that wasn't terrible since I was just coming off a marathon and hadn't been running much, but it also hurt more than I felt like it should. I went through the first mile in 7:19 which was exactly my pace at the Joplin Memorial Half Marathon. The person closest in front of me was Thomas. I finished the first loop of the course and saw dad who cheered for me. I knew I'd be able to run the 2nd loop faster because I didn't feel tired, but my heel/ankle was hurting quite a bit. My 2nd mile was also 7:19. During the last mile Thomas passed the boy who was running closest in front of him and I was closing the gap on that kid as well. I ran the last mile in 7:10 and caught the boy. After I passed him, he passed me back. I decided I wasn't going to let him beat me without a fight so I took off sprinting and ran the last portion of the race in 5:47 pace. I ended up beating him by 7 seconds, so I guess I didn't need to sprint that hard to the finish, haha!

Thomas finishing the first loop.

Finishing the first loop.

After passing the kid the first time before he rallied to pass me back.

Running away from him the 2nd time.

Thomas placed 6th overall with a time of 22:23 and I was 7th overall and first female with a time of 22:45. I averaged 7:12 pace which I was okay with. Thomas was hoping to be under 22:30 so he was happy with his time as well. After the race we did a mile cool down and my heel/ankle was still hurting quite a bit. All day it hurt to walk and the following day my run was really painful. I probably shouldn't have run the 5k, but it was the kick in the butt I needed to finally go to a doctor. I went to see a sports medicine doctor and he did an ultrasound on the area. He said I had tendonitis which caused bone spurs to form. Looking at my tendon, he showed me some places where my tendon had torn and had healed, but grew back denser which was also causing problems. So here we are weeks later and my mileage still hasn't gotten over 20 miles a week. He recommended cutting down to 10 miles a week and slowly building from there with cross training mixed in. I added in elliptical and then we bought a bike so I could go on rides with the family and cycle for cross training. I am loving cycling and am now kicking myself that I went with a mountain bike since it was $100 cheaper because I'd like to be able to ride faster on the roads! I'm thinking about doing a 38 mile bike race at the same race Ty is doing his 100 miler in September. Obviously I won't be fast and it would just be about having fun. I rode 30 miles this past weekend so I'm definitely capable of doing the distance! I've been going to PT twice a week and that seems to be helping. I'm hoping to be back in good enough shape to get my 60/70 mug at the Tulsa Run again this year, but the main goal is to get back to running while avoiding surgery for my bone spurs. Read past years' Firecracker 5k posts here: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, and 2013.