My fourth annual RLS 5K is finished

So on Friday, you know the day before the 5K?  I forced myself to walk the loop at work on my lunch break.  It is about a mile and a half and has a couple of hills in it.  I had been putting it off, only walking the flat part by my office because I was afraid of what it would do to my back .  However, Rob made a very good point the night before about wanting to know if I wouldn’t be able to walk hills before I got to the actual race and got stranded at the two mile mark or something.

I was able to walk the loop.  My back hurt but not as bad as I thought it was going to.  The muscles in my lower back were still very much locked up when I was done but the fact that I was able to power it out was encouraging to me.

So Friday night found me starting my period and down for the count with some really horrible cramps.  Great, now my back and my front hurt! 

The reason I mention the cramps is because it had me loading up on the Advil on Saturday morning which I believe was the key factor in my back not hurting at all for the race.  I know that may sound like a dumb statement.  Well, of course Kelly, why didn’t you think of just taking some before the race anyway?  But I don’t work that way.  I don’t like taking medicine at all.  I’m kind of paranoid about it.  I will only do it if absolutely necessary and I’m in pretty bad pain.  Like cramps.  I’ve had them bad my whole life and if I don’t load up on Advil, I will be throwing up from the pain in no time.  But for things like headaches and back pain that goes away once I stop walking…meh.  I’ll stick it out without any meds.  In my opinion if my body is giving me pain it is something I should feel.  It’s a warning sign and I need to feel it in case it gets worse and results in me needing to seek medical help.  Yeah, I’m weird that way.

So anyway, with the help of advil and walking every day this week I was able to do the 5K with relative ease.  I brought the dog with me and we had a nice little 3 mile walk in the forests of Pebble Beach.   This was the 4th time I was walking this particular race but knowing my back situation my goal this time was just to finish.  I really didn’t think I would even be able to match my time from last year let alone beat it.

It was a very pleasant surprise to me when I got to the finish line and found out that I had cut off four minutes on my time from last year.  🙂   I was quite proud of myself.

Today however, I am feeling it.  With no Advil left in my system I awoke to very sore muscles in my back and surprisingly in my hips and inner thighs.  I guess that makes sense since my pelvis had been tilted for so long and now that it is corrected I am using muscles that hadn’t been used in a while, but it just feels weird the way things are hurting.  I expected my shins and calves to hurt but my hips?  Odd.

The diet went out the window yesterday as there was a pancake breakfast after the race and I do like me some pancakes.  🙂  Followed it up with Pizza last night because I was totally exhausted and didn’t want to cook(totally an excuse by the way since I have tons of leftovers that I could have nuked and stayed on diet).

Today I am back on thanks to my hubby that just made me steak and eggs for breakfast.  I’m off to get a mani/pedi as my reward for yesterday and then grocery shopping so I can cook for the week when I get home.

Hope you had a wonderful weekend!!!