FMM: Eventually?

It's Monday, but there's no Friend Making Monday topic posted yet, so I'll have to update this post later today if there's time.

I can't believe it's already June!  The next couple weeks are going to be weird for me.  My husband is having a couple surgeries on Thursday this week (related to his nose/sinuses), so I think I'm going to be working remotely for Thursday and Friday, and then probably all of next week.  I'm just kind of paranoid about leaving him alone.  If our neighbors were in town, I wouldn't mind going to work, but they're in Michigan for a few more weeks. 

I actually just read a little blurb (for work) about a medical malpractice case about a guy who died after having these same procedures done.  My heart almost stopped beating when I read the blurb.  The man who died weighed about double what my husband does, so that may have been a contributing factor, and of course there are a million other variables at play too.  But given that he'll be under for the procedures and then on a lot of pain meds for a week or two, I'd rather be there. 

My weekend wasn't very exciting.  The big news was a PR and another age group award.  I'm starting to think that my decision to race every single weekend for six straight weeks may have been a good decision after all!  It officially resulted in two PRs and it kept me motivated and excited.

Next weekend I have an unofficial race (a 5k, more about that later this week), and the following weekend I have another 5k.  Neither of those have any PR hopes -- the first isn't an official race, so it doesn't count, and the second is a 5k in June, no chance for me. 

This weekend's race was 4 miles and my PR was a few years old, so I figured I had a good chance of breaking it.  This is one of the only 4 mile races in the area, so I was competing against my old PR on an equal course and with roughly equal weather (Dallas in June).  But I lucked out Saturday morning with temps around 79 and high humidity -- which both suck -- but pretty solid cloud cover!  Sun is a big nemesis for me when I run, so the clouds made me happy.  My PR was from 2009 and I remember that it was a sunny and hot June Saturday -- my in-laws were in town and they were cheering for me.  As I ran past the big tree near the finish line where they'd set up their folding chairs four years ago, I missed them a lot.  We'll go visit them in July, but I wish they'd come here, it's just hard for them to travel. 

I was worried the race wouldn't go well because my warm-up felt hard and I was soaked with sweat after only a mile.  But I got on the course and decided to acknowledge that positive splits were pretty much a given.  It was an out and back course, and miles 1 and 4 were pretty flat, 2 was downhill, 3 was uphill.  So I went out fast, almost 30 seconds ahead of PR pace, and mile 2 was just 5 seconds slower than mile 1.  Mile 3 was ugly -- 2 seconds slower than PR pace, but I knew I had some cushion from the first two miles.  The last mile was all about just holding on.  I felt miserable and wanted to walk, but I kept saying that even if the mile was slow, I'd probably PR. 

The funny thing was that there was commentary by the annoucer as we neared the finish -- he was encouraging us to break a threshold time.  And I know I was working hard because I thought he didn't know what he was talking about -- I was imagining that we'd be about 7-8 minutes faster than that because somehow I was thinking as I approached the finish line that I'd only run a 5k (despite the fact that I'd seen three mile splits and I knew it, and the last mile split felt like it had been an eternity ago).  So I was confident that we were well-below the time he was discussing, that he was just mistaken.  Then I came within sight of the finish line and sure enough, the clock was as the announcer said -- ticking up to the threshold time.  My mind was blown.  I thought I'd screwed up my math during the run somehow and was going way, way, way slower than I realized.  Thankfully, I kept running just to be done, then finally it clicked in my mind -- oh yeah, this race was 4 miles, not 3.1.  So of course I'd be many minutes slower than I would for a 5k.  Der... 

I told my coach about that and he agreed the confusion was a good sign of a solid effort.  Math and numbers get all messed up in my head when I'm running at a solid effort and I know I'm not alone!  Anyway, I managed to eek out a finish a couple seconds under the threshold, which meant a PR of about a minute (15 secs/mile) and that was exciting.  Plus, I ended up with an age group award as icing on the cake. 

The rest of the weekend was uneventful.  A long run, naps, cleaning and errands, some cooking.  Very low-key, but nice. 

And now it's Monday again...  Ready for a crazy week, going to try to set it up so I have a few distinct projects to work on during the surgery and his recovery.