Last week recap

Monday I did 3 miles to get the legs turning over and ready for my race on Tuesday night. I always run better on the 2nd day after a day off so I knew this run was important but wanted to save all that I had for the race on Tuesday.


Tuesday the race was set for 6:30. I don't know what the temperature was but it was supposed to be high 80's with about 90% humidity at start time. Fortunately the race was in a garden so the trees provided nice shade but also stifled the breeze that felt so good. On top of the hot humid weather it rained about an hour before so there were huge puddles on the path and that hot steamy feeling coming up from the asphalt.

I lined up well mostly towards the front. I checked local area times and I knew I would be in about the 3rd wave of finishers, behind the front runners who finish in 15:xx and the next group that is sub 20:xx. We started out fast, very very fast. People had no idea how fast they were going and it showed about 2 miles into the race. We did the first half mile at 6:16 pace so I pulled it back a little and hit the mile marker at 7:20.

The course was pretty tough as far as hills go. I'm a sea level runner so I was surprised to find hills we had to conquer. No matter, I just pressed on. I hit two miles at 14:50 so a 7:30 mile. I knew I needed to finish with a 7:25 third mile and a strong kick to the finish. No problem, I was tired but had it in the tank.

Then it happened. I was in a group of about 15 runners, we were set to finish sub 23, this was the group I was going to hang with. We came to a fork in the race. No cones, no person waving us a certain way, so we guessed. About .2 of a mile later we realized we guess wrong. We ran into the group that was trailing us that would finish in 25 minutes or so. So we just jumped in with them to loop around again.

I was so mad and deflated. About 30 seconds went by like this and then I realized it wasn't going to do me any good to be mad or deflated so I should just finish as strong as possible. So I picked up my pace and started passing runners, runners I had already passed once.

It got tough because my body was prepared to go 3.1 miles at race pace not 3.35 miles at race pace. But I keep moving forward and finished in 24:30 (my clock time) 24:33 (chip finish).

I'm racing again on August 23rd and there I'll make my next sub 23:00 attempt.

To wrap up the week I did a 4 mile easy run on Wednesday and then a 6 mile run on Friday. I then took Saturday and Sunday off to get rested for the start of my 15 week half marathon training.