Achilles is a-killin' me

I ran the LA Big 5K Saturday morning with 5000 other people. I arrived to Dodger Stadium before the sun. The ground was wet and slick, and the air was crisp and biting. While I was discouraged to wear my New Balance Minimus for the race, I did, only owning them for less than 16 hours. I did wear socks with them.

The race started a bit late, and they weren't very organized overall in herding the large crowd in the right direction. I started off in a decent pace. I estimated that I jogged the first mile of the race. I started to walk on our first of 3 hills. It burned the hell out of my ass. At the top of the ascent, I picked up my jog again as the trail started to wind down. There was only one water break on the route, which I did not stop for, at the half way mark. 

A few hundred meters from there, on flat pavement, I started to feel the discomfort in my feet. This is where the friendly voices come into my head of not wearing my new Minimus' to this thing. Every time the ball of my foot would strike the ground I felt pain in certain pressure points. It took a lot of concentration to try to disburse my weight over more areas of my foot, but it seemed to slow me down... I had no more "spring" in my running bounce. 

I approached the 2nd hill and was relieved that I got to walk. I could feel the blood rushing into my feet. 

The last mile was mostly flat, save the hill that is the entrance back into Dodger Stadium  parking lot. I jog that last leg... when you come over the crest of the last hill and you see your last 600 meters, you get this burst of energy and run as fast as your tank of energy allows; in my case, not so fast. 

This is what they give you when you cross the finish line:

I'm not too obsessed with my finishing time. That wasn't/isn't the point of me running the 5K. My goal, as I stated in my previous post is to get over the loathing I have for running. I intend to do more 5Ks, hopefully on a monthly basis, to learn more about my body mechanics and mindset while I run. 

Maybe down the road I'll keep track of my times in a more competitive manner. For now, I'll state as more of a starting point- 41:23, which is 13 min mile. 

I went into the box last night with every intention to do the WOD since it seemed like a pretty awesome chipper. I wasn't able to do it though, so I believe I'll be attempting it tonight. Hopefully my achilles will be not as tight as they have been the past few days. 

Let me just be upfront

I hate running. Therefore, I signed up for a 5K. Hating something takes so much energy, and I'm fuckin' tired. So, I need to make amends with this hate by just doing it.

I went to the box today and had no idea how to "prepare" for tomorrow morning. I mean, do you prepare? It's only 3 miles. I have purposefully avoided WODs that contained any running in them since the beginning. (GOsh, this has turn into a confessional) So, I figured I would come into the box and run. I didn't have a plan. I thought, just run.

I ran 2-800 meters.

So I'm running about 11:15 mile, which would put me at about 34 min finish time. I really want to come in around 30 mins, but I highly doubt I will magically start running a 10 min, esp. since I've been avoiding running this entire time. 

Truly though, doing this 5K is the first small goal of getting over my hate, regardless of what time I come in at tomorrow morning. I think it would be good goal to just run as much as possible, walk if absolutely necessary.