It's another Take it and Run Thursday.
This week's question is from Yummy Running:
What is your favorite race? Do you live for the marathons or crave a 5k? Would you rather race in the morning, afternoon, or at night? Do you like big races with tons of people and encouraging crowds or do you prefer the smaller hometown races?
This has actually changed for me over the past year. Before I probably would have said the 1/2 marathon, but now I'm really enjoying doing 5ks. I like to feel fast (even though I'm not), and I like the fact that, because the distance is short, there's a lot less pressure on any individual race. Have a cruddy race? Do another one next month. The only distance I'm really not that fond of is the marathon. I like the idea of running a marathon, but I don't really like the training, and I don't like the fact that you spend weeks and weeks building up to ONE RACE on ONE DAY when so many things that are completely out of your control can go wrong.
As far as big vs small and local vs destination, I'd probably say small (but not so small it's poorly organized) and local. I love the ability to get up one Saturday or Sunday morning and decide I want to race that day. Or decide I don't want to race. As far as time goes, I think you can't get much better 10am on a Saturday.
Speaking of running, I did 5.5 miles this morning with 2 miles with the goal of running a little slower than 5k goal pace. Unfortunately I ran MUCH slower than goal pace (ave pace 8:13 min/mile vs the 7:55-8min/mile I was going for). The good news is that I felt much more peppy than I did yesterday (thanks, homemade pizza for dinner last night), but the bad news is that it didn't translate into speedy legs. Oh well. I guess these things happen.
