2011 Army Run Recap

So yesterday was the Canada Army Run. What a fantastic and uplifting race that is. My goodness the atmosphere of that one is just amazing.   After a month of SoF and 2 weeks of solid miles on my  legs I felt really good about going into this 5k and bringing home a PB (better than 2010 Resolution Run 33:32).  Or at least damn close to it, which would be 10 minutes off my current average time for the 5k races this year.  Of course, being that Murphy hates me... he handed my ass his law on the 9th while getting ready to head out camping. I picked up a tub that was awkward just the "right" way and tweaked my piriformis which in turn from sleeping on an air mattress for 2 nights did a wicked number on my sciatic nerve.  I spent the week in horrific pain that cut through a double dose of AC&C with muscle relaxant every 6 hours.

I woke up feeling pleasantly ok, maybe my hike Saturday on an engagement photo shoot helped I'm not really sure, but I'm not going to question it either!  Sunday I woke up nearly pain-free, I avoided as much sitting as I could as that seemed to aggravate the nerve.  We arrived around 730 in the corrals and proceeded to stretch a bit to warm up. We had a good brisk walk from the car to the corrals so we were at least warm for that.  At 8am the gun went off and we headed out into probably my favourite 5k course - for a bit I was able to keep up with MMJ but their long legs and my sore hip slowed me down around rather quick, I got maybe 3/4 of a km with them before they disappeared into the crowd. We all had our missions for the morning - theirs finishing as fast as they could, me? just finishing was the first objective.. second was finishing in average time. I had a really good time, did a bit of my run with one of our veterans which was nice. 5k really doesn't feel very long anymore, I can remember when it seemed to take forever.  I finished strong with a sprint to the end, not my fastest but it was strong and I felt good.

Today I'm a bit sore and creaky but my hip feels fine. It's more my hamstrings, glutes and calves that ache - most likely from running a bit differently while babying the hip.  Tomorrow starts me working on getting somewhere with the half marathon in 3 weeks.