Weekend Warrior Workouts and Other Nonsense: Back on the Race Circuit

Over the past couple of months, due to my recent injury/surgery, I have missed a lot of races that I had already signed up for. Missed the Finish on the Fifty 10k in Foxboro on July 3rd. Love that race because you get to finish on the fifty yard line where the Patriots play. Missed the Hingham 4 miler on July 4th. This is a really fun race because there are so many people that I know that run it. Then we all get together afterwards for a cookout and some drinks, a perk of all the running! I missed some triathlons and got relegated to photographer for the boss.
This Sunday, after a week of short runs to get back in the groove of running, I ran in the Cochrane 5k in Quincy. Another race the boss and I have done several times. I originally going to do he 10k but since the longest run I had done the week before was 3 miles, I decided the smart move was to just do the 5k instead of overdoing it and risking injury. I know I know, that's not very runnery of me but I'm getting old and injury recovery time can be a killer. I decided, run the shorty, pace myself, and just enjoy the run.
I have a couple tricks I use to pace myself. 1. Starting position. Normally, if I were healthy, I'd start close to the front. Instead, knowing I need to take it easy, I started in the middle/back of the pack. It's a good way to slow yourself down if you have the patience for it. I mixed in with the 10minute per mile runners. Jog at the start, first 1/2 mile was uphill so it thinned the crowd out a bit. Ran passed the usual group of kids that started too far to the front and are now running 5 wide up the street. Runners will know the kids I'm talking about. They are at every race ;) around mile 1 I ran into my buddy John whom I've known for around 15 years and recently reconnected with through work. Jogged easy with him and chatted for a bit. Took off from John to pass his wife Vera a little further up the road running a a quick and steady pace. This leads to trick 2. Wear my Garmin. I always know my pace. Sometimes when running, I just feel so good that the pace escapes me and when coming back from an injury, that's not necessarily a good thing. Knowing my pace helps me reign myself in. 3. Head games. I feel like I have been running long enough that I can adjust my mentality. I mentally told myself that I needed to run my race, my pace and kept repeating that in my head. These three tricks worked for me and I had a great time running and enjoying the race as I went.
I think I have rambled on and delayed getting this out long enough. Below are some pics form a couple of the tris I took pics at for the Boss while I was injured and the pic we took at the end of this weekends race and a couple other events. Let me know your thoughts and most important, get out there and get active!