Yesterday, I returned to the Greenway for my first run since the half marathon in Tulsa on Sunday.  I’ve been taking it a little easy, as I could feel that the effort on Sunday in the cold had really exhausted me — although my body wasn’t sore, which was great news.  The only fallout from Sunday seems to be the beginning of a “black toenail” on the third toe of my right foot.  This seems to be a real rite of passage for the longer runs, so that’s not unexpected, although I’d rather I didn’t have one.  It feels weird.  🙂

The weather yesterday was dreadful.  It was cold, and rained the whole time.  I know I’ve said that I love running in the rain — and I do — but there’s a huge difference to doing that at 50-60° than in the low 40s.  I dolled up in my Zippy’s, my new bright orange CEP calf sleeves, my freshly won Route 66 running shirt, and my running jacket.

I’m really finding that I enjoy running in my calf sleeves, rather than my compression socks.  It feels as though I have more choices that way, as I can vary my sock (thin or thick), while still getting the benefit of compression in my calves.  That may be the new path for me!

I’ve been wanting to run the Mustache Dache for a while, but only just noticed this year that they had a virtual option.  With that, I signed up, and finally picked a day to run.

Once I arrived at the Greenway, I stretched out, and began to run.  And run I did.  In fact, this became the first 5K I’ve run where I ran the whole distance.  Yep, the whole thing.

I didn’t have great speed, as I was taking it slow due to the wet conditions, but also because I didn’t know what my body was gonna do.  Would it give up?  Would my goofy black toenail start causing trouble?  Fortunately, neither happened, and I just kept chugging.  Looking at my cadence data, I was really up and down on steps-per-minute, but I was never as slow as my walking pace.  The was cool to see.

I really think the half on Sunday gets the credit for my success yesterday.  I kept chugging, hill after hill — none as big or long as the ones in Tulsa — and I could just put the distance in a little box in my mind, knowing what I’d just done a few days earlier.  Every hill was “just” a hill, every kilometer was “just” another.  And at the end of the slog, I’d run my race, and heck of a good race at that.

This race benefitted ZERO — The End of Prostate Cancer.

Race Course