St Pete Beach Classic 10K

Let me just say that this race is done extremely well. Spoke with Wendy, the race director, and she is a really nice person. Normally, I do a half marathon in January but they were on the same weekend this year and I chose to do the 10K because I love this race. I chose well as we had nice foggy, calm conditions on Saturday morning while Sunday morning (for the half marathon) was cold, windy and plain ick! Most know how much I hate the cold! So I dragged the Dane out with me for the 10K. To back up a bit, the last day in Maui, we ran a five miler and I had some pain in my right lower leg, didn't think much of it. It has continued to bother me so I haven't really run all week. I'm not quite sure what it is but it's becoming quite bothersome and I may have to see someone to get diagnosed. Anyhow, I was already signed up for the 10K so decided to warm up and see how the leg was. Injury pain seems to totally subside with racing, weird. I did run every day in December and felt my run fitness was ok but took it a little too hard in Maui so I didn't know how tired I would be from that. Gun goes off and six women take off and I am stuck in no man's land - I was afraid of going out to hard not having any speed or tempo work of any sort for several months, good decision. Went out in 6:3x and stayed there for a couple miles. I passed the Dane in the second mile, he wasn't having a good day. Nonetheless, the 10K household trophy is mine! I was also doing a lactate threshold test and had to run the second 5K as solid as possible. I really kind of died the last couple miles and barely squeeked under 42 min (although I think official result shows me at 42 even). Anyway, I only ran the second 5K about 17 seconds slower than the first which I thought was pretty good for me at this point. I won Masters and got nice swag for that! I also got my lactate threshold tested and now can plan my run program. I do need to solve this injury and hope I can do that without missing too much. We did sign up for St Croix 70.3 in May instead of doing Florida 70.3 which I have done every year since it started in '04. St Croix is a very tough course and will definitely be a challenge but I'm looking forward to it. All build up this year is for Kona and getting stronger for that. St Croix will give me some good feedback! Cheers.