Douro 10 Miler & 5k

After the blowing snow on Saturday it was nice to feel the warm sun on Sunday. My goal for the 5k race was to better my time from the St. Paddy’s 5k and to run the entire race barefoot. Running on these types of hills and on the dirt road was new to me. Despite these challenges I was comfident that I could run under 25:19. The race started slowly with everyone beginning at the same time. The gravely pavement was tougher to navigate than the gravely dirt, but at least it was only for about 500m at the beginning and end of the race. By the turn-around I felt I could use a nice drink of water. I quickly found that my drinking while running technique needs some improvement. I took one sip of water and squeezed the top of the cup together to seal it as best I could. Although I could feel the occational drop of water escape the cup as I ran, I expected to get at least another sip out of it. At the bottom of the next hill I stopped for another sip and of course couldn’t get so much as a drop out of it. So I crushed the cup in my hand and held on to it ’til the finish. This distracted me from focusing to much on my tender left heel that may have been slightly bruised by a pebble on the hard pavement at the beginning of the race. My feet felt hot and a little tender by the end but that’s typical after a hard run and means the skin will thicken for next time. The dirt road was actually a pretty nice surface to run on. Overall I felt good at the end, and the 24:35 finishing time only helped. The beautiful weather really topped off the day. It was hard to believe the next day I was running in a snowstorm during the Pub Run.