It's been a long time since I've posted anything here: three whole months! Wow. The last race I ran was the Highlands Ranch Turkey Trot in November (not really sure why I didn't do a recap of that one; it was actually a solid race, a 24-minute 5k). But it's a new year, with some exciting new opportunities for me. So on with the report!
As I mentioned in my Chicago marathon report (waaaay back in October!), my next marathon will be in New Orleans on February 13. After taking the rest of October off from training, I started up again on November 1, and am now four weeks out. Today's long run was scheduled for 22 miles. As luck would have it, this weekend was one of the three weekends a year Coach David takes off from Runner's Edge of the Rockies. ("Three weekends a year?! How selfish...") But, there was a silver lining opportunity: The Frosty's Frozen Five and Ten! The two races were scheduled to start in succession rather than simultaneously, so I had an opportunity to race 15 of my scheduled 22! And I knew that a number of RER friends, not to mention friends from the Runner's Roost Race Team ("Don't you mean 'teammates'?" "I'll get to that in a second."), would be running one or the other--or both--of the races, along with several hundred other people. I determined that I could get there early, run 7 miles solo, then run the races at training race effort; in other words, treat this like any Saturday long run. This struck me as a Brilliant Idea.
So this morning I got to Hudson Gardens about an hour and a quarter before the 5-mile race was scheduled to start and ran 7 miles out-and-back, following my typical long run pace guidelines and adhering strictly to my fuel schedule--2 Honey Stinger chews every mile, and Gatorade every 2 miles. I got back just a few minutes before the start of the first race. Now, I did this 7-mile start along the Platte River Trail, the same path the race followed, and was mildly concerned that I might want to shoot myself in the face for running past the same buildings three times. But as it turned out, that didn't really become an issue. The energy for the 5-mile race was high; and the fact that I was now in my element and among my people (which is to say, runners) meant that, at least for the first race, I barely noticed or cared about the repeated scenery. In fact, I ran an almost letter-perfect 5-mile training run. I kept my pace even and steady--although, again, at long run training pace rather than 5- (or even 15-) mile race pace. Solid 10-minute splits, and almost nothing went wrong.
Almost nothing. I did, in fact, slip on some ice about three-quarters of a mile from the start, and landed right on my backside. ("At least you landed on something with plenty of padding." "Hey!" "I mean, as opposed to your face.")
When I got back to the staging area after finishing the 5-mile race, I had enough time to cool down slightly and change my timing chip (yes, I had one for the 5-mile and one for the 10-mile, and I had to write "5" and "10" on each to avoid confusing them) before it was time to start the 10-mile race. Again, my plan was to maintain an even 10-minute training effort, and stick to my fueling schedule. And, for the first 3 miles, I did exactly that. I was helped in this by fellow RER runner Jaclyn, who runs in the same pace group as me and was doing the same race-as-a-long-run strategy. But she slowed down at the first aid station and encouraged me to continue. Then I fell into conversation with another runner; and without realizing it, we both increased our pace to about 9:30. Not only that, I skipped my regular walk breaks at the start of each mile for the next several miles (and even missed a few fuel opportunities). I was consciously aware of these omissions; but honestly I was feeling so good that I believed I would be all right.
And I was. I managed to maintain between a 9:30 and a 9:45 pace for 6 of my last 7 miles; and I could have kept that pace for the last mile had I not made a conscious decision to ease off my pace and make that a cool down mile (as I've been trained to do for long runs). Although, I note that my heart rate, which had been between 150 and 160 for the first 15 miles of today's run, increased steadily over the last 7 miles from 162 to 171. And, at mile 20, my legs became very heavy and tired as the lactic acid I'd built up suddenly dumped into them. But as I said, when I hit mile 21 (mile 9 of the race), I slowed down to about 10:30 pace to let myself cool down. I would never do that in a race, of course; but again, today wasn't about fast race times. ("You still kicked it into high gear in the last 200 yards or so." "Well, that's because everybody from Runner's Edge who'd already finished was there cheering for me! Loudly! There were, like, a dozen of them! What was I supposed to do?")
I'm very encouraged by today's run. It's probably the best 22-miler I've ever had. Certainly the format was quite unique. And the weather was pretty near perfect, too. ("Maybe you should find races to run for all your 20+ mile workouts.") And even though my race times were hardly PRs, the fact that I felt as strong as I did even after 20 miles makes me very happy. ("After the race, Julie from Runner's Edge asked how I felt." "What did you say?" "I told her I felt fantastic, and that I could easily go back out to run another 20 or 30 feet.") And now, I'm really starting to get jazzed about New Orleans in a month. Honestly, I've felt...well, not bad, I've still felt good about it; but kind of blase. After today, I'm finally starting to get really excited about that race!
I'll tell you one more thing about which I'm very excited: this year I've been accepted to the Runner's Roost Race Team! I've been friends with and fans of a lot of the people on this team for the last couple of years; now I'm part of their ranks and could not be happier. I'm looking forward to running and training with them, and having them push me even harder to excel.
Official time(s): 3:39:35 for 22 miles; 50:34 for 5-mile race; 1:37:12 for 10-mile race
YTD Race Miles: 15
YTD Total Miles: 89.1
Number of times I passed the Hudson Gardens model train set: 6
Bookworm at Edwards CO signing
6 months ago
