Trying New Things

A couple of weeks ago I tried something new! Cross-country running!

Sure I've run trails before, lots of trails. And I've run at our old "Cross Country Park" but until that day I had never run "cross country".

It's different. If you've never done it, it's like running on the fairway of an old golf course. Funny because that's exactly what it was for me/us! Huntsville morphed it's old municipal golf course into a multi-use park that included a cross country run course. To officially open the new park a big Cross Country meet was held and they included a "community run" which I decided to enter.

When I signed up I didn't really think about the fact that this would be a new thing. But as the race drew closer I became more and more nervous. I asked Dwayne to sign up to run with me to pace me to a "faster 5K" (which he did). I was really glad he was with me. It sounds silly to be so nervous but I think the truth is I'm either having a little symptom flare of my brain disease or, as a friend put it, I'm at "critical mass" on stress and this little thing was a bigger thing in my head than it needed to be!

We got there in time for me to pick up my bib and to sort of warm up, and plenty of time for me to stress over the idea of doing this new and foreign thing! It wasn't long and we were lining up. If you look at the picture you can see the start is a long straight chute. It was designed for high school/college cross country races so to make the start more fair you can't have a big difference in start times. Each school/team has a starting spot. (If the start was like every other race start you could have a good :30-1:00 difference in start times between the first and last person to cross the start line.)

I knew I would start out too fast. There weren't a lot of people doing the race, I didn't want to start off in the very back even if that's where I eventually ended up. We were about a half a mile in and I saw a group of girls women I know. They are all faster than I am right now and all in MUCH better shape, probably training for a marathon....but I made it my goal to stay with them. Okay, so my real goal was to pass them, but I knew that wasn't going to happen. They were doing intervals so early on I thought at least staying with them was realistic. Every time they would walk I would start to close the gap...and then I would have to walk. They were running faster so throughout the 3.1 miles they slowly inched away.

We played a bit of leap frog with and older man who, like Dwayne, had run cross country back in college and this race was bringing back a lot of memories for them both.

I was struggling not so much with breath as I was with sheer energy level. It feels like I just don't have any oomph in my body. Like my muscles are all on vacation. My doctor thinks my adrenals just aren't working properly. She said when I was on steroids my adrenal glands basically retired. After getting off steroids they were told to come back to work but they are resisting that. I've been on an adrenal supplement but it's probably not strong enough. Also my ferritin levels are low. Ferritin is a protein that stores protein and releases it when your body needs it. The question is WHY are those levels low...we haven't figured that out. The short term answer is to get iron infusions, and I've been needing to get one for months. I've just put it off because it's not crucial. But no doubt I would be able to train (and in this case) race at a higher level if I got one.

At about mile 2.5ish we picked up a 15 year old runner who was walking. I'll call her coach because as we got to talking and she found out this was my first cross country race, she began to coach me! It was the cutest thing. She explained to me how I needed to relax on the down slopes and pick up my knees on the up slopes. She talked about mindset and breathing. 

I know from my own experiences, she was getting as much out of it as I was! 

One of the gals I was chasing starting walking and we caught up with her. She's a good bit younger than I am but her heart rate was SKY HIGH. She stayed with us a little bit but when we decided to pick it up at the end she held back to let her heart rate slow down a little bit.

Dwayne was still thinking I might be able to catch the other gals but I was giving all I had but they were still pulling slightly away. It was funny because they were just out for a training run. They ran miles before and after this little 5K. But I was (sort of) actually racing them. I ended up finishing just 30 seconds behind them so I was VERY VERY pleased given where I've been and how I've been feeling. It's the fastest 5K I've done in like 3 years! (33:21) I think if it had been on the road with the same terrain I might have been able to get that time close to 30 minutes!! That is VERY encouraging!!

The course was WONDERFUL. I will say at the time I didn't think I was a big fan of cross country running. It's harder than road running (slower and more work) but it's not as hard as trails (not as slow or as physically/mentally taxing). My legs and ankles weren't really sure what was going on! But, fairly quickly after it was over I decided I actually LOVED it for all those reasons! In fact I plan to go back to run it again soon. I think it's going to feel very weird to run the course alone since it's such a big open field, but I really liked the more-challenging-than-roads-but-not-as-challenging-as-trails aspect of it.

The next thing coming up for me right now is Little Rock Marathon but goal number one is a faster Knoxville Marathon next year....which means hills. I've really got to figure out what's going on with my ferritin and adrenals before then!

Thanks for stopping and and sticking around!

:D