United Healthcare Triple Crown Kickoff

The pain of the marathon's final miles are so quickly forgotten, and I'm already anxiously awaiting the next time I get to pin a race number to my shirt.

Lucky for me, it's right around the corner - the Cox Rhode Races half-marathon on May 6, also known as the first leg of the United Healthcare Triple Crown.

I've run this race every year since its inception, so even though I knew it was just 3 weeks post-Gansett, I signed up again this year, wanting to keep the streak going.

And as luck would have it, a good friend of mine is also running, looking for a PR, but running a pace that's slower than what I would normally run a half, so I offered to pace her, and she accepted.

Running with a friend, and hopefully helping her to a new PR, is going to make for such a great experience!

And when I signed up, I thought to myself that I'd be so burned out from training for and running Gansett, that I'd have no problem keeping to a slower pace at Cox, and not pushing myself too hard and ending up injured.

But here I am, not even a week later, already itching to get back to the track and put some training plans in place for the summer and early fall.

So I'm thankful not only for the opportunity to run with a friend and see her accomplish her goal, but for the fact that she's going to keep me from really racing this one. It'll be good for me both mentally and physically to just go out and run a race for fun. I need that, and I'm really excited for it.

Since I just ran a marathon, my 'training' for this race consists of not really training. I took all of this week off from running, and have just been doing some cross-training. I'll go for a run tomorrow, and then will get in a few easy runs this week, and probably aim for close to a 10-miler next weekend - all at a nice, slow pace, though.

That, combined with my Gansett training, should be more than enough to carry me through the 13.1.  Won't be breaking any records, but I'll definitely be having a great time!

Comments

[Laura]

That's perfect... I'd be tempted to race it too, but having a friend will keep you accountable and let your legs finish recovering well. You're gonna have a great time!