Running pic

Running pic
Yup, that's me!

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Corn Maze 5K

Oof. Bank audit at work keeping me too busy to write a post, but I can squeeze in a little one.  I did a 5K on Sunday entirely in a corn maze.  It was surprisingly well run considering the number of things that COULD have gone wrong.  There was no pre-race packet pick-up so my husband and I got to the farm just early enough to get our bibs and t-shirts.  Running the shirts back to the car put us a little behind our expected start times – the organizers started people every three seconds by their expected finish times.  I think I may have started one group back from where I should have, but that made it kind of fun because I got to pass a few people on the course.  They had roped off the aisles that were not part of the course so that you wouldn’t accidentally get lost, but that left over 250 twisty turns and two stair/bridge crossings.  All the turns made the race really fun and kept my mind off of the distance.  I managed to finish close to my 5K PR, so that makes me think that if I could find a 5K with a flat, wide course (i.e. no Bucktown 5K) in cool weather I could probably get a new PR.  After the race I was walking back to the car and some guy told me that I blew by him which made me feel pretty good because that doesn’t happen too often.  I guess it was pretty easy to pick me out considering I was wearing obnoxious compression calf sleeves with hearts printed all over them – mostly I admit, for the warmth and not the compression. 
I’d definitely do this race again next year, but I’d consider running in trail shoes.  The dirt was pretty packed down and the bumpy soles might have given me a little more traction.  At some point I almost wiped out on a corn leaf or husk but managed to pull through – I’m not sure if trail shoes would have helped in that situation.  It rained early in the morning so I wore an old pair of Kinvaras because I didn’t want to trash any of my clean shoes.   Short spikes would be ideal, but I don’t think I can justify buying a pair of spikes just to run one gimmicky trail race a year although as I have said many times in the past, I’ve spent more money on stupider things – one look at my eBay buying profile would tell you that.  Still unless I can miraculously get my 5K time under 20 minutes (wait – you should hear the laughter right about……now) I think I’d look pretty silly in spikes.
I went running with a couple of friends later in the evening – 6 slow miles – and the bottom of my right foot was bothering me a little bit – probably from one of the turns in the corn maze.  I didn’t run yesterday but took spinning and weights classes instead.  The foot is still bothering me today so I’m taking the day off and I have it wrapped.  I’m hoping it’s nothing more than a pulled muscle because there’s a Fleet Feet Chick’s Night outing on Wednesday night and we’re scheduled to run 4 miles to a local brewery for a tour and tastings and I don’t want to miss that!  Then I have to lay off the running – maybe just 4 miles or so on Friday morning because I have a half-marathon scheduled on Saturday up in Lake Geneva.  Aren’t I just the glutton for punishment?  I keep getting e-mails from the race organizer that warn of the hilly course – oh joy.  I did a hilly half last month in Janesville, WI that was really hard (picture a 1.2 mile hill that climbs 116 feet right at the start of the race) but I managed to keep it under 2 hrs (barely).  I’m hoping to keep this one under 2 hrs. as well – we’ll see, I’m not the greatest hill runner by a long shot.  I have another half Thanksgiving weekend that has a pretty flat course so I can try for a new PR there.
I’ll be back for sure next Monday with a report on the half.

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