Newport 10K Recap (Kind of) + Post Marathon "Recovery"

Goodness. Life has been so busy the past couple of weeks that I have barely had time for social media.

Unless it is instagram; I always have the 5 seconds to instagram some aspect of my TOTALLY exciting life. Running and eating. Yes I lead the most interesting life around these days.

Anyways - I thought I would do a little update on how things have been going post marathon.

As I said in my previous post - I had a hard time coming to grips with my marathon performance. If I am honest, I am not 100% over it. I think about it a lot and carry it with me on my runs.

Especially since I was able to rock out runs right after.

I worked out not once but twice the day after - but waited to run until Tuesday night when I was throwing down sub 8 min miles to end my workout. Umm right, where is that coming from?

Wednesday I cross trained and lifted.

And then I did another easier run on Thursday averaging around 9 for a few miles.

Friday - I FINALLY took a rest day post marathon. I have a really hard time with rest days but I had the 10K on schedule for Saturday morning so decided it wouldn't kill me.

Saturday I woke up to gloom and doom and rain. The nice part was that it was in JC a quick ride on the light rail from me. Problem: I get to the light rail and it isn't running because of an accident. It is now 20 minutes prior to race and I still need to get there and get my bib. We got a courtesy bus to the PATH station and I ran to the cab line and hopped in and zipped over. Arrival at race = 8:25 for an 8:30 start. And the RAIN UGH.

I was most concerned that I finally had given in and upgraded to the iPhone 5 Friday - I dropped my phone in October...that poor thing was destroyed - and now I was about to run a race in the rain. Oops.

It was simple enough to pick up my number and hop into the start. A couple minutes later we were off!

Insert going out WAY TOO FAST. I looked down and was in the low 7's. Mother effer.

I kept trying to pull back but wound up killing that first mile in the low 8's and kind of f myself up for the remainder. My hips were super tight and my shoes were soon heavy with water.

I was not in the mood to be doing this.

I hit the 5K point in about 27 or so and stopped to stretch out my hip. I knew I would PR (old PR was 59:35 or something so by default, I was going to PR this) and stretching was more important than anything else.

I was pretty over it and spent miles 3-4 contemplating jogging my way back to Hoboken. I am dead serious. I was achy I guess that whole recovery thing is real after a marathon and me going full force all week was coming to bite me in the ass.

Once I hit 4 though I was good. I wasn't really pushing and just toned it down until the finish. Positive splitting races for life!

When all was said and done I finished just over 58. I was fine with that. I plan to take that down big time though this summer. I can rock a 10K in the low 50's for sure if I am rested (a whole different issue in itself obviously for me).

I am slowly getting faster again with ease. I know partially is that I am losing weight somehow about 5-6 pounds in about 2 1/2 weeks (yay not being able to eat anything stupid awful GI issues) so pace with training naturally goes down.

But overall - it is a really nice race and super flat course. I can't wait to do the Newport Half again in the fall which covers the course.

After I met up with a friend before going home and eating (pancakes necessary obviously), showering and packing then heading down to my parents beach house in Belmar for the night.

The most exciting part of the weekend was having my first beach run of the year. Sunday was beautiful and I logged just over 7 glorious miles. Heaven (and taking it easy yet again, clearly).

Overall - I am getting REALLY tired of races. I am so ready for this cycle to be over. I pretty much haven't stopped since September.

This weekend I have the Brooklyn Half Marathon then finally the Dirty German 50K MDW.

After that this summer I am planning the NYRR Mini 10K as well as the Queens 10K.

Then there is the Belmar 5 Mile.

And realizing I guess I am still racing a bit.

Insert cursing.

But the MOST important thing coming up = MIAMI. Approval has been received and in a month I will have a glorious long weekend with my sister full of poolside R&R.

I. Can't. Wait.

And can we take pause for just a moment about next weekends ultra marathon.

50K = 30.xx miles.

Start the prayers now.

Much appreciated.