I ran the Hot Chocolate this morning.
As of last night, I was still on the fence about even starting it. I was having coughing fits so badly that I would choke myself until I vomited. I know, disgusting.
I decided to run anyway and set my alarm bright and early. I was very thankful for daylight savings.
I woke up feeling better than I had been, but really nervous about starting and not being able to finish. I told myself I would just break off with the 5k if I really needed to.
WELL I did not need to. I ran the first 5k with two friends before they broke off from me.
Mile 1 felt really rough because we started in a tunnel and I was immediately hot even though it was so cold out. However, it got much better once we came back up into open space. I was feeling “okay” but not great once we hit the 5k. I decided to keep going.
Everything was fine up until mile 7.5. My lungs just did not want to function. I wasn’t coughing the whole race, but all of a sudden it just started. I ended up adding some more walking and didn’t even bother with the uphills. It was too much. I’m STILL coughing now, hours later.
My average pace ended up being 14:15, which is obviously shy of my goal, but considering how sick I’ve been the last week, I did better than I anticipated.
A huge shout out to Coach Billy. Although I didn’t reach my goal, I really think that if I was healthy, I would have a great chance at hitting it. Thank you!!! (Now I just need to convince you to help me with a challenge training plan......)
As an aside, My watch put me at 14:02 pace with 9.45 miles at the following splits:
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