Another Road Race?!?!

Some of you careful readers may have noticed yesterday that I said I ran five miles on Sunday. Some of you readers who know me well know that is totally not normal for me. But it's something I've been doing a little bit more frequently lately, because instead of training for a 5K this spring, I'm biting the bullet and training for a 10K. It's been on my "101 in 1001" list for nearly two years, but I keep pushing it off. In fact, I spent all of last spring/summer pushing it off by running 5Ks (one for St. Patty's Day, one before our beach trip, one at Jazz Fest, and one with a friend back in town from Hong Kong). I kept thinking to myself that my next road race would be a 10K, but there was always a "good" reason to just do a 5K. However, I realized this winter that our goal is to have the "101 in 1001" list completed by next April, and that didn't leave me a whole lot of time to get my 10K in. Especially since I didn't really want to run one in the dead of summer (and subsequently train for one all summer), nor did I want to run a winter/early spring one (and subsequently spend most of my time training on a treadmill). So when I saw a race in mid-May, it seemed perfect--still (hopefully) mild weather for the race, but hopefully getting nice enough to be able to do most of my training outdoors (especially the long runs). I've actually been training for a month, and things have been working out great. I had to be inside for the first few weeks due to weather, but it wasn't that bad because my runs were still pretty short. Now I'm starting to get into some longer runs though, and thanks to the wonderful spring we've been having, I've actually been able to get outside to get them in. Granted, I've done some switching around of training days from my training schedule (adapted from the Jeff Galloway model), but when my long run happens on a day with 25+ mph winds outside, then I'm definitely going to switch it with my day of cross-training. I know that if I were training for a longer race sticking to the plan would probably be more important, but since I could probably go out and run a 10K right now (just not very fast!), I feel okay moving some of the things around with my training to better accommodate the weather and my schedule. Because let's be honest--I'm not doing this to break any records or win any awards, I'm just doing this to finish. And cross it off my list. And that much I think I'll be able to handle.