Youth Villages 5k race report

I placed in the top 3 overall for the first time yesterday! The YV5k gives overall awards five deep, which is one of the reasons I ran it. I've placed 4th in several races, and once even placed 2nd but it was a race that only gave an award for the first overall woman, so it didn't count. I expected perfect running weather, but it turned out to be windy and overcast, so it actually felt cold. Once the race started it felt great, though. I watched a 14 year old girl go out strong and figured she must be a cross country phenom that I couldn't hang with, but I tried to keep any other women from passing me. I kept second place until about 2.5 miles in, when someone ran by and I was too tired to try to keep up. I was thrilled with third place, but there is something frustrating and also motivating about that feeling of wanting to go faster and having nothing left to give. After the race I kept questioning - could I have hung on to 2nd place? If I were just a little tougher, and could take just a little more pain, did I have it physically? Running is such a mental game, and thats part of what I love about it. You have to be strong physically, but you also have to be willing to hurt and fight through it. My 5k time has improved by a couple minutes in the last two years (or less, I can't remember), and it's partly from training harder and working harder at it, but equally because I've learned how to hurt, and how to push just to that point of not being able to go any further or faster. It's so fun to improve and see my times get faster that it's worth some pain and work!

This post is very braggy, but I'm excited! :)