Weekend race

Well, last Thursday at about 3PM, I decided I had to force a race upon myself!  Work lately has been goofy busy and I started to feel the level of my fitness begin to decline.  The short story is that for the last 5 years, I have taken an hour at lunch and run either a 5 or 6 miler (need shower time!) or 2.5 miles and a 533m swim.  I'm good with a 60 second banana and V-8 post work-out and my lunch time is well spent.  Of course I work out a bit more in addition, however, this allows for premium family time which is my priority of course!  Anyway, when I start missing my luch time workouts I have to figure something out.  An out of the blue 5 mile race was just the re-kick start I needed!  When I was in my 20's and early 30's, I could step away from the workouts for up to a week or slightly longer and could end up with some killer race times or workouts.  These days at 43, I find that I certainly need more consistancy with less rest before a race.  If I wait to long, 5-6 days for example, my workouts feel sluggish and seriously compromised.  Needless to say, I didn't even check out the course map!  I finished in an official 34:14 and felt OK about it.  Next week promises to be less busy as a large part of the department is at an annual conference.  The race reinvigorated me and I now know I can't wait 5 months for my next race!  Cheers!

                                                                                                                                     Mitch