Spiked and Pysched

One out of two isn't bad.

I've been following Matt at chasingtradition.com. While in Boulder with the Colorado Buffaloes, he wrote about the team being "spiked and psyched up" for their workout on Friday morning. I liked the phrase and was planning on being "spiked and psyched up" for my race Saturday. Unfortunately, I realized on the way to the race that I had forgotten my spikes. Oh well, I thought, it should be more of a workout than a race anyway. And it was, although it wasn't really even a good workout.

I felt OK when I woke up Saturday morning, so I figured my plan of running 6:30-6:40 miles would be doable, even without the spikes. I warmed up about a mile, and headed to the starting line. A few minutes in, I realized the race was not going to plan. I think I went through the first mile in 6:45, but it felt a lot harder than I though it would. I don't have any other splits, other than coming through 5k in about 21:50 and finishing in 44:16. I just didn't have it Saturday. Even though I felt OK, I figure I still had to deal with the lack of sleep I've accumulated over the past few weeks. My stomach didn't feel very good during the race either. Somehow, though, I still managed to finish first in my age group to move me to first place in my age group in the cross country series.