2022 Peachtree Road Race - did surprisingly reasonably well today. Had lots of excuses and reasons not to expect to run well - had a bout with COVID in the 2 weeks leading up; frustrating proximal hamstring tendonopathy that has been more problematic in the last month than it has over the last 6 month - plus it was super humid this morning - high dew point of 71 degrees. So I went in with the idea of just hoping to maintain 8 min pace and wasn't sure I could even manage that having most of my training run paces of 8:45 to 10 mins lately...
But things kinda worked out ok. I did some pool running yesterday afternoon - which seems to be helping the hamstring the following day; and although it was very warm and humid today - the start at 7 am had some low cloud cover and the sun never emerged until mid morning.
Usually my family participates in the event - but two of my girls are not in town and my other daughter would have walked it with her toddler, but they do not permit strollers. So just my son-in-law and I did it today. But today's race was the first time since the pandemic that they have held the race on one single day (last year was split over 2 days for social distancing) - and crowds were finally back and it seemed like things were back to normal.
Anyway - the first half mile was a little rough feeling - my legs felt terrible and I could not seem to find a groove. But I relaxed a little and allowed myself to get acclimated - and was very pleased with a 7:20 split for the first mile. The next two miles are downhill and I ran those both at or below 7 mins. The second half of the race is mostly uphill - the steepest is section is between 3 and 4 miles and my pace slowed to 7:40 - but I came back with a 7:30 and then 7:07 before finishing the last .2 at 6:30 pace downhill. My HR effort in the second half was probably more than I should have attempted - but at the time, it felt like I was not overreaching.
My time was literally 3 second faster this year than last year when I ran "easy" with Dan; but considering my situation this year - I could not be more pleased with this result.
PM - 1 mile of deep water running in the pool.
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