I'm trying to get 800 miles on my old shoes before I retire them. Smart? Probably not. The cause of my recent blisters. Probably yes. Do I look like I care? Just look at my profile picture.
I had some issues with my boy this morning. May have been the cause of the faster than normal, although not that I can't always, pace. Honestly. Will that boy ever learn?
Today was supposed to be a recovery run of sorts. So I thought maybe it would be a good time to go running with the "cats", Ginger and Cinammon. Those two don't know the meaning of the word recovery. Cinammon always has to run right next to Ginger. And I mean she's got to be touching her. When we got to the canal I let go of Ginger's leash. But after a while Ginger was missing her affection and started running next to Cinammon. Well, somewhere along the line I stopped my Garmin and didn't start it again. But I'm sure I was way faster than the 9 minute pace I was shooting for. Thanks a lot, bitches.
2011 Dayton's Dash (3.11 Miles) 00:22:20, Place overall: 8
Total Distance
4.46
My friend Gabe told me about this race. The Deacon's Quorum president in his ward organized this race as a fund raiser for cerebral palsy for his Boy Scout's Eagle project.
This is Gabe.
He sent me the link on Facebook, and I sent it out to all my local running friends. My friend Julie from my last Ragnar team came. This is she.
I wasn't sure how to run this race. Would there be fast people there? Should we run faster than Spencer and Dayton? I decided I would run hard and see what everyone else was doing.
They counted us down from 10, and as I expected some people shot right out. I wasn't near the front when the race started so I went with the flow and watched a bunch of people in front of me. I settled in to a nice 7 min. mile pace which felt extremely easy, but I knew it was the pace I wanted. I trusted that everyone in front of me would tire out.
The course followed the parking lot road then turned right at the street. The street dead ended into a cul-de-sac bulb so I could count how many people were in front of me. 29 after 0.3 miles. I told myself just to keep running my race. Then we got onto a dirt trail. I kept passing people here and there. Spencer and Dayton were ahead of me.
There was a water station at the turn around point. I wasn't sure where to turn around, but I didn't need any water. About a dozen people in front of me stopped to get a drink. This is where Spencer stopped and had an adult take over. Spencer needed to be at the finish line when everyone came in, after all, it was his Eagle project. So I passed Dayton up shortly before getting back on the road again. At this point I could tell that I was in 9th place. I ended up passing three more people, but also got passed twice. I was even chicked by two guys. (Somehow, that last sentence makes perfect sense to me.)
My splits were 7:06, 7:09, 7:23, and 0:42 (6:36 pace). I'm okay with that. I wish I was getting faster, but I haven't been doing any core or cardio work lately. That, I found, is what really helps with my speed.
So, I talked with Julie and her sister a bit after the race. Then I went out to find Gabe who was running with his son. I saw them walking in. His son was tired out. 3.1 miles is a long way for a 7 year old. (I think he's 7. Maybe 6.) So Gabe kept trying to get him to run. We got him going for a little bit. Then he stopped again. We were so close to the finish. So I leaned down and whispered in his ear that if he beat his dad, I would give him 2 quarters. Then he ran all the way to the finish.
I talked to Spencer after the race and congratulated him on the great project. He's a nice kid.
I also got to see Dayton. He wasn't too thrilled about being up so early in the morning, but I'm guessing he enjoyed himself. Fun race.