Working for the Weekend

It's time for me to start overanalyzing thinking about my 5k this weekend. Being a beginner runner is really fun because there's almost always an opportunity to PR. My 5k PR is 27:56, set just a month ago, on a day when the weather sucked was highly unfavorable (windy and cold). The weather is still predicted to be windy (I don't think I ever noticed or cared about the wind so much until I became a runner and I'm pretty sure we haven't had more than a couple days of light or no wind in the past month) but it's going to be warm (low to mid 60's). Even though I've done very little speed training, I feel like I can PR again. I'm competitive (are there runners who race and aren't?). I'm driven to race so I can beat my own times, but now that I've had a little taste of finishing toward the top of my age group? Oh, yeah, I'm racing my little 180 beat per minute heart out. My goal is to get under 27 minutes, so my pace needs to be no slower than 8:41. My outfit has been chosen, race packets picked up. I'm ready to race this weekend!

Jake and I ran 3 miles together today on the trail behind the running store. This was our first time to run together and it was so much fun. I can't wait until we start training for 1/2s together. It's going to be so much better to have a partner for long runs this time!