Maymont X-Country Festival 5k

Wow, this was hard!  This race was by far one of the most difficult runs I have ever had.  I know that seems silly with it only being a 5k, but it's true.  There were many contributing factors to making this such a horrible run.  Let's take a look, shall we....

1.  It was 95 degrees and humid!  It was September 24th, the second day of fall.  That just isn't right!  The previous week had me spoiled with highs in the low 80's, and then Mother Nature had to go and ruin it for me!

2.  I have never run a cross country race.  Well, not just a race, I have never run anything cross country style.  I am a loyal road runner, and after this race I think I will keep it that way.  I was naive enough to believe that running in the grass would be great as it would be much easier on my bum hip...that was not the case.  The entire race was uphill, downhill, uphill, downhill.  You get the picture.  And the few sections that were flat were not really flat.  I felt like I was leaning to my left or right the entire race.  This was probably the hardest part on me as it was really tough on my hip.

A glimpse of Maymont

3.  This was my first race after recovering from my injury.  And in all honestly, I don't know if I would go as far as saying that I have recovered.  I'm much better, but I'm still not back to normal.  Something is still just not right.  I probably was not quite ready to race again, and I know for sure that a cross country race was not the best choice for my comeback.

I was far from pleased with my performance, but I'm going to learn from it and move on.  I ended up finishing in 34:54, which is definitely not a time that I'm proud of.  On a more positive note, I'm proud of myself for trying something new.  Now it's time to think ahead and get myself ready for the American Family Fitness 5k/10k in a couple weeks.  I'm still a little up in the air on which race I'll do.  I'm leaning towards the 10k, but I know I have the 5k to fall back on depending on how I'm feeling over these next two weeks.