A clydesdale no more!

We decided late Friday night to run the Memorial Day Classic half marathon in Syracuse put on by Striders Running Store.  It has been a long time since I have been in race mode so the plan was to dip my toe in the racing waters.  Quite frankly, I have been afraid to race because I didn't want the discouragement of the results.  Didn't want to kill myself but wanted to give a good, solid effort.  My plan was to run 7:15/mile and see how it felt.  The course is pancake flat so would give me honest feedback on my fitness level.  The race started and nobody was interested in running fast.  I ended up leading for the first 3/4 mile which forced me to run a little faster than planned.  Modified my goal and locked in 7:00/mile pace and tried to maintain that the rest of the way.  At times, it felt a bit forced.  When it did, I would modify my stride to get in a more comfortable rythmn.  Focused on shorter quicker strides instead of my typical long, loping strides.  Every mile was between 6:56 and 7:01 until mile 12.  At that point, there were 2 runners that were slowly coming back to me that I wanted to catch.  Switched gears and started to lengthen my stride to pick up the pace.  Got by them, moved into fourth place and just tried to hold on to the end.  Last 2 miles were 6:40 and 6:45 and I finished in 1:31:11, missing 3rd place by 9 seconds.  I only had one low moment during the 11th mile.  I certainly had plenty in the tank at the end but the effort was solid the entire race and a good indication that I am moving in the right direction.  It's a strange feeling being happy with a 1:31 half but I'm accepting my place in my third running life.   

Crossfit session included a 7 minute run.  I went a few seconds longer to get in a full mile.  Feel completely exhausted today.  Why aren't holiday weekends more relaxing?

Crossfit:  Today was brutally hard.  A lot of repetitions of each exercise and I'm not experienced enough to accomplish all of them in the allotted time.  Fortunately, the workout included two 6 minute runs.  That is still the only thing that I can do well there.  Even though this is killing me, I am starting to feel better about myself which is what is important.

Run up to Bountiful Blvd and back home.  Wanted to do a more difficult run today since I have only run a couple of times this week.  Decent effort going up and just kind of cruised coming back down.  Legs felt a little worn out and I couldn't get a good turnover on the downhill. 

Crossfit. A different type of workout today.  It was more focused on specific muscle groups.  Tweaked my neck on one of them and it is still killing me.  Included three 6 minute runs.  I got progressively slower on each one (1 mile, 0.9 miles, 0.8 miles).

My girls haven't done a race for a while so when I saw the South Davis Community Hospital Superhero 5k on the schedule I thought they would have fun with that.  Ordered them costumes (bat girl and black widow) and I just wore a superman shirt and red shorts.  Couldn't find a red cape.  They wanted to run this one on their own which forced me to actually race a 5k.  I told myself I wouldn't race one until I was ready to run it under 20 minutes.  Guess I had to give it a shot. The horn went off and a few high school kids jumped into the lead.  Another guy passed me but I could tell he wasn't going to last the entire race at that pace.  I wasn't wearing my Garmin so I wasn't sure how fast I was running but the pace felt hard.  Hit the first mile marker in 6:20 which is exactly what I needed on this course for a sub 20.  As we made the turn on to Porter Ln with a very gradual incline, I started moving up on 2 runners.  Continued to run controlled and past them close to the halfway point.  Tried to keep the pace to discourage them from staying with me.  It worked on the older guy but not on the high school kid.  He would catch up then drop back.  Continued this for a half mile then I started to gap him.  I knew that my only chance of beating him was to have a good enough lead before we made the final turn on to 400 north.  There was no way I was going to out kick his young legs.  Thought I had a good enough lead but heard him coming up fast with 0.2 to go.  He flew by, I offered words of encouragement and cruised to the finish.  Finished in 19:33 but I suspect the course may have been slightly short.  Still sub 20 even if I added the extra distance.  Ran back to find my girls.  Gracie was doing great (finished in 27 minutes - a 2 minute pr) but Emma was struggling.  Once I got to her, I just told her to run easy to the end.  No more stopping.  She was disappointed but still felt good about completing the race. 

Got home and felt good enough to put in a few more miles.  It was cool enough outside that it wasn't too punishing.  Ran down to the LPT and put in 12 additional miles.  Averaged 8:15/mile and felt great.