On Sunday, I walked a 5K with Jason and Stephanie. In my last Sunday Coffee post, I discussed the nostalgia aspects of this event. The thing I didn’t say, and the thing that makes this event double special for me, is that my aunt Cheri passed away from colorectal cancer in 2014, mere weeks after my family arrived in Boston. We were too broke for me to come back to Texas for her funeral services. It was one of the first heartbreaks of moving to Boston. So yes, this particular 5K and its cause is close to my heart for several reasons. And I almost didn’t get to walk it. –>

Rewind to last Friday. I went out for a walk at my normal trail park, and decided to take a benchmark running test. In September, I’d twice run 1.1 miles nonstop on a particular route, and hadn’t done the run again since then. With making a current personal best in last week’s Chocoholic Frolic 5K, I thought I should test my mile time as well. These tests are run on a 2/3rds downhill route at a comfortable pace, no pushing. And I did end up improving my September time by a significant amount. More relevant to this post, however, is that I injured something in my right ankle-knee-hip connection during the run. I didn’t feel any injury or pain or slip, but a couple hours later, the outside edge of my right foot began to hurt, and the pain traveled upwards. I foam-rolled and iced all those areas, and thought some movement would help. Jason and I went grocery shopping Saturday morning, and I had to go sit in the car for the last 20 mins because I could no longer put any pressure on my right foot.

So that’s where I was at on Saturday, foam-rolling and icing like a mad-woman, because I REALLY wanted to walk this 5K on my birthday!! Sunday morning, I immediately put on a compression sleeve over my ankle (see above photo), and made sure my shoes were on tight. A few videos of me walking barefoot and in my shoes showed me the issue. These shoes are made for hiking, and while they’re called trail runners, they’re not supportive enough for my troublesome feet when I run. I roll outward – a problem I’m trying to slowly correct – and so my foot is literally shifting so that I’m walking on the outside edge with the shoe almost diagonal on my foot. The compression sleeve (for support) and the really tight laces were crucial for the day’s 5k. And I still knew that I might not make it.

The 5K was very early. Jason and I were up before 6am, me with a whole giant glass of iced coffee, heh. (see above) We got to Morgan’s Wonderland (starting location) right as the announcements had begun, and met up with Stephanie. Everything ran fast after that – kid’s run, the runners’ start, and then the walkers were going under the starting arch without any real call for us to go yet. Heh. The walkers were untimed for this 5K, but both Stephanie and I put on our fitness devices for personal accuracy. Because of course.

(before the 5K)

The good news: After about a half-mile, my foot stopped hurting completely for the rest of the 5K. Clearly, that sleeve and tight shoe worked! So what’s the bad news? There isn’t any!! The rest is just more good news. We walked our 5K (or actually 3.2 miles) in 58:41, an 18:29/mi pace, and that’s even with stopping twice at water stations AND being stuck in a slow crowd for the first half-mile. Clearly, we’re getting faster and stronger!

(Why yes, we DID walk through a giant inflatable colon)

We didn’t stay long once we were done. Just long enough to get some bananas or breakfast tacos or cereal or granola bars and sit down to eat (below). (Thank you, sponsors, for having some gluten free granola bars, and thank you KIND brand for making so many delicious choices!) Then we all went off to the next parts of our day. Jason and I headed home to make some nutella pancakes for my birthday breakfast…but birthday celebrations are the subject of another post.