Late post on the past weekend’s race. I’ve been focusing on 5Ks as a way to rebuild not just fitness but also confidence. And this was the last race of my mini fall 5K season. I ran the first one back on October 3. After running a 25:01 in a road 5K two weeks ago, I was hoping maybe I would have some old XC magic in me and - and just maybe break 25. But it didn’t quite work out that way. I had some morning GI issues and the emergency POJ stop cut into my warmup time. I put my singlet on and hustled down to the start as quickly as I could but still was about a minute late. I quickly put my foot on the timing mat and took off. The first mile felt good and fast, but in Mile 2 either the lack of warmup time or the stomach distress put me off, and I just couldn’t find a better gear.
All told, I’m disappointed with how Saturday went, but I can’t complain about how the fall season went. I made significant progress after a very long down period. And now I hope to jump off that to get even stronger in 2026. I may not get all the way back to my “old self.” But I will make sure the journey enjoyable and peoductive either way.
