No Rest For the Wicked 5k: At Least I'm Consistent

AM: 8 miles easy
PM: 2.5 mile w/u
Target: 5k tempo
Actual: 4.99k in 17:16
1/2 mile c/d
Daily total: 14 miles

The last time I ran this 5k fun run almost a month ago, I finished in 17:17. The week before that, 17:20. So I suppose I shouldn't be entirely surprised that tonight I finished within a few seconds of both of those efforts. I've got consistency going for me, which is nice.

Unlike those other two instances, however, this one was special due to a particularly high concentration of Karhu and Craft participants. In honor of our new hire, Stacy, being in town for training, Jordan and I also convinced several other of our coworkers to attend. (Potentially this was accomplished by luring them with the prospect of beer and food afterward.) It was definitely cool to jog up to the triangle after our warmup and see Stacy, Scott, Chris and Jenn in addition to the increasingly familiar faces of the regular Thursday night contingent.

To be honest, as for the run itself I felt pretty beat. I've been especially tired this week--I'm assuming it's not good when your first thought upon waking every morning is the mental calculation of how many more hours until you can return to the inviting folds of your comforter--which I'm guessing is due to residual fatigue from last week's trip. (Which trip, you ask? The one I promised to regale you with in great detail in my most recent Week in Review? What can I say...I'm even too tired to blog.) I had an amazing time soaking in the beautiful Pacific Northwest summer weather and running in some great locations--Forest Park in Portland, Greenlake in Seattle and the exquisite Stanley Park in Vancouver, to name a few--but I honestly think my body is still recovering from the combination of hours upon hours of driving, Friday night's restless redeye flight and the time zone difference. Oh yeah, and running 100+ miles somewhere in between. At any rate, despite my best attempts at recovery I just haven't felt superb on a single run this week, and tonight's tempo was no exception. I let Jordan drag me around and managed to hang on with mounting dismay as the screws gradually tightened from a lackadaisical opening kilometer to a seemingly all-out final one. The only time I've been more relieved to finish this run was the week when my lunch found itself barreling through my digestive tract like a high-speed bullet train with an indecorous one-way ticket. At least on that night I had something to distract me from the discomfort of the actual workout. Given how I felt tonight, I was actually pleasantly surprised to see the final time flashing on my watch at the finish. And with the rest of the Karhu crew following closely behind, there was little time to dwell on how terrible I felt. No rest for the wicked...especially when it's dinnertime!