Autumn Breeze

I was sorely tempted to run the Autumn Breeze 5-K in Tallulah Falls, Georgia this afternoon.  The sky was a brilliant shade of blue, the air was nice and cool with a little breeze, and the course was as flat as it gets in North Georgia.  But this was Martha's race, part of her own half-marathon training plan, and the only real speed work she is doing since she is building her mileage from virtually nothing.  (Derek and Lindsay went down the mountain from Highlands and ran the race as well.)

She was looking at this as a training run, but she surpassed both of our expectations, finishing in just a couple of seconds over 31 minutes and taking 2nd place in her age group despite being the oldest in said age group!  Way to go Martha!  Beautiful trophy, beautiful woman.

For my part, it would have been idiotic to run a 5-K the day after an 18-mile training run, and two days before a demanding set of mile repeats.  Wouldn't it?  Derek joked with me before the race that there was still time to sign up.  And I realized that I was wearing a fairly decent set of old running shoes, could un-zip the lower legs from these hiking pants, and simply replace my easy 3-mile run scheduled for tomorrow with a nice easy 5-K run.  Fortunately I came to my senses.  Because I know I would not have held back, and I might very well have hurt myself.

The old adage is a good one - did Joe Henderson say it in his book? - there is nothing at this point in your training plan that will help you run a better marathon.  But there is a lot you can do to ruin it.