With my injury, the last time I ran a 10K or more was January 14th, four months earlier. Last week I did the Mississauga 10K, but I'd run 3K straight and finished out the race with walk breaks. My hope of a PB was definitely long gone, so I went into the race hoping to at least be able to run pain free and to try to remind myself to be happy that I was running again.
On race day I was repeatedly surprised.
I managed to run the entire race (with the exception of hug breaks) and had almost identical 5K splits. Every kilometer was a full minute faster than anything I’ve run since January. I was incredibly pleased about this. Even better, I was pain free for the race.
The organization of the race was incredible. There were volunteers everywhere and despite the incredible numbers of runners and walkers (I've never looked back to see that many runners as in the photo below!) I always had a good buffer of space around me. I managed to see friends at the start, along the route and finish.
So, yes, I really liked this race! Of course it felt a bit more like a comeback race than last week, and although I mentioned in a previous post that I doubted I would be focused on goals and PBs in the future, it would be neat to see how I could do on this course had I not have been just coming back from injury!
Maybe next year.