I didn't quite hit my 20 minute target for the 5K on Saturday (my time was 20:56), but I was the overall female winner. That's never happened before, in part because one of the local runners in my area is an ex-college athlete who regularly hits a 6:30 pace across MARATHON distances. Naturally, she can go a lot faster than that for a 5K.
I achieved two of my goals, and I'm going to work on all of them again at a 4.5 mile race this weekend. I wanted to keep every mile under a 7-minute-mile pace, to practice leaning into the hills, and to "empty the tank." The first two were fine: I had been nervous about the downhill start, because I tend to brake myself during downhills, but the energy of the race helped me use it to my advantage.
Emptying the tank is hard, though. I have never finished a race thinking, "That was all I have," and this was no exception. Maybe the 5K distance makes that very difficult, but at the same time, I think I could have picked up my pace during the final mile. It was psychologically difficult for me to do that, though, once I realized I was the first woman. I know I need to dig into myself for motivation and to run my own race, but it's really challenging for me to push myself past self-created limits when there's not someone pulling me along.
I felt fine after the race, but the next night, I experienced horrible pain in my heel/achilles tendon. I've been dealing with inflammation and pain there for months, but on Sunday it was debilitating. I even had a dream about it.
Now, I'm spending the week trying to recover form the injury by icing it, taking anti-inflammatories, and getting a massage. I'm going back and forth about whether or not I need an x-ray. It seems more like a tendon issue, but I don't want to make any mistakes and wind up needing to take months off from running.
How do others stay injury-free, and how do you respond to some of the nagging aches and pains that could turn into injuries?