Woke up this morning to pouring rain. Went to BART to make some copies. Went running on the bike path. Did 3.10 miles in 29:30 in the rain. Felt pretty good while I was running. Saw one person walking his dog, but other than that I didn't really see anything worth mentioning. At about 11:15 I headed up to North Adams. The race was slated to start at 12:30pm. Found a place to park to make a hasty exit from N. Adams after the race. Went and secured my bib. What a nice surprise to see the Wahconah coach again as well as to pick up my bib and see it was #92 and not #1. I walked back to the car and then went for a warm up jog of about .5 miles. Goal today was hopefully to get 26 minutes or so. Knowing that I have not done any speedwork, or any real miles for that matter, I hoped this was doable. Stretched lightly and then lined up. THE START - I knew the start was downhill and that typically people start too fast. I tried to hold back and found myself near the back going down Main Street on the way out to the Curran Highway. Mile 1 is pretty downhill, with the exception of the bridge. Ended up blowing through a 7:28 first mile. Oh no! Mile 2 is always slower, because there is a long uphill of about 250m or so. Caught four or five people here as they started to slow. Ran through the second mile in 7:58 Third mile was just about trying to keep it together as it was all slightly uphill and then up and over the bridge again. Saw a few of my students and they waved/shouted encouragement to me. I realize now that I am a trail runner for a reason - I hate having people looking at me while running. I am too self conscious. Add to that the fact that I was wearing a women's raincoat and it made for some nice headgames. Tried to get back into the race. Ran a 7:58 third mile as well. Picked it up on the way into the finish line. Felt really good overall. Don't know my place yet, as it was a small race, but hopefully in the top 100. Beat my goal by nearly 2 minutes! Total Time: 24:04 Total Distance: 3.10 miles Average Pace: 7:46! 4:30 PM - Went running with Emm once the sun came out a bit. Harry and mom stopped by as Harry was over in Springfield visiting a campus in his college search/quest. We went around the block. Though Emm said she was taking it easy, we seemed to be steadily picking up pace as we went. My goal was just to try to hang tough and not implode. Splits were: 9:05, 8:41, and 5:55 (8:35 pace for the .7). Ran 2.75 in 23:41, good for 8:46 pace! Note: Today was the first day I've ever run 3 times in one day.
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