Southern Eskimo: Running Recap and New Treats

On the lunch break right now so I figured I would take some of my extra time to update the blog. Workouts have been pretty good the last week and this past Saturday was the Polar Bear 5k in Marietta, Georgia. Here's the run-down on my race.

The Good: I had a new PR with this race! Time on Garmin was 26:02 but I forgot to stop my watch at the end so I think I actually was under 26. (Found out later timing chip showed me at 25:48 which is a minute faster than I was two weeks before.) The course was fairly flat with a couple steady, long inclines.

The Bad: It was rainy, which was a little annoying. There were 2,000 peeps running and they had us all squeezed into one lane. Sardines had nothing on us. The race had us wear a chip in our race number but there were no mats to cross over and activate them so everyone's time began together which really screwed anyone who wasn't up front. To stop the time chip, you had to go another 5 or 10 seconds after you crossed the finish line to the people with these wand-thingies that stopped the time. Not cool.

The Ugly: Work went late last night which meant I was running this race with only 3 1/2 hours of sleep... I was dead tired. Calves were wicked tight from being on them all night. I wore too heavy of a jacket and was hella hot. I ate two hours before the race but quickly learned that going this hard meant I should have eaten 3 hours beforehand. As a result, I had wretched side stitches kick in during the second mile and never let up. I had to stop 3 times to try and get them to ease up some. No such luck so I just made my mantra, "Suck it up, buttercup" for the rest of the race. It just continued to go downhill, as the lap times will attest to...

As soon as Adam and I finished the race and handed in our chips, we went straight to the car to get home and crash.

Just flat out hurting from the side cramps...

Adam cruising in...

Looking back on this race I am still really happy since my time is improving. I know it's still a slow time but I have to remind myself that I do not come from a running background (much less any endurance background!) so it's at least a starting point.

On the food front, last night was a repeat of my delicious turkey/feta/cranberry burgers with some grilled veggies and steamed broccoli.

As for new things, my order from Matisse & Jack's finally came in and I was so stoked! The food is an amazing and natural bake-at-home snack that you can mix whatever else in with their ingredients to make rocking pre/post workout treats or a healthy, anytime snack. I used the Chocolate Chip Power Snacks and mixed in the ingredients from http://vo2maxxed.blogspot.com/2008/11/matisse-jacks-cranberry-pumpkin-power.html to make a hella awesome treat!