The Gory Details

I didn't have time yesterday to break down the race for you all, so I figured I'd do it now.

I was worried a bit about my starting position; I was in corral J, which I thought was at the very end. I worried about making my way through the walkers and the few slower people.

Turns out, J was at the very start! Then I got worried about being run over! So I purposed to keep to the side and try to stay out of everyone's way.

At the gun, I set off and tried to count steps to set my pace. I was pretty sure that I was running a 15 step (right foot)/10 seconds, which was what I wanted to run for the first mile and should have been just under or right around 10 minutes.

I hit my lap timer at the first mile and much to my dismay, I ran a 9:13 mile. Too fast! There was nothing I could do to fix the past, so I decided to just keep chugging along.

The single water station was around mile 1.5. I found I really need to practice drinking from an open cup. I got a couple of sips of water down, but mostly just got it on myself. Luckily, I didn't breathe too much water...

Just after the water station, there was a down hill section. Now, it wasn't all that steep, but I had to consciously restrain myself from going too fast down the hill. Afterwards, I wondered if I should have just let gravity pull me down at a faster clip - I still don't know what's the right answer.

I also knew, since the Start/Finish line was both the...start....and finish....line, that what goes down (me), must also come up. And the up started about 1/4th of a mile before the 2 mile marker.

I hit the two mile marker and wanted to quit, erm, walk. There was one guy that I had been running around that was running and walking, so I passed him several times. He did not encourage me to keep running with his walking, but I persevered and kept plodding along.

This same guy did inspire me at the three mile mark. I had been steadily gaining on him during his latest run phase and when I punched my watch at the .1 mile to go mark (same as the 3 mile mark), I turned on the afterburners!

All of those speed work runs finally paid off! I still can't believe it, but they did! I was able to pick up my pace and run the last 1/10th of a mile in 40 seconds, which is a 6:40 minute/mile pace!

I left ole run/walker in the dust! I also passed about 10 other people. I was chugging like a locomotive!! I ran out of gas around the 30 second mark and ran the last 10 seconds on sheer will.

It made the difference in attaining my goal and just missing it. Speed work, who knew! Ok, well, lots of people knew (including, thankfully, my coach.)

So, results! I ended up placing 8th in my age group out of 20, 98/252 men, and 157/659 overall. You can go here to find me - bib# 5444.

17 seconds separated me from 5th in my age group. Seven...teen.....seconds. I do believe that I can be competitive in this age group; I mean, I did beat over half of the men in my group. 8-P

I plan on looking for a 5K on Nov 6th; I'd kind of like to run one before the Thanksgiving one just to see how much I can improve in the next three weeks. Of course, I also need to think about switching my focus from 5Ks to 13.1 miles. I have a schedule for the rest of the year that will have me running a long run of 8 miles on New Year's Day.