I ran the local RnR marathon with the goal of using it as a supported quality long run and hitting roughly 6:00. Secondary goal to win a little cash. I was not trying to race, but wanted to leave myself in good enough condition to start some quality sessions by the end of this week. I averaged ~5:55 for most of the first half, dropping down to 5:50 with a small group I latched onto.
After the courses split at 12.5, I saw that 1st was only about a minute up. I was dumb and got competitive and went after him. 13-19 were around 5:45 avg and I narrowed the gap to 10-15s before he caught sight of me. He put on a surge and by mile 20 had widened the gap to 22s. My legs were telling me I was at race effort, and I finally realized it would destroy me for a couple weeks to try to beat him. His surge said he was feeling good enough to do battle, and honestly I'm not sure I was in good enough shape to beat him if I'd tried. I'm not in the same shape I was 3 weeks ago. I let go at 20. I held 6:00 for a couple miles until I got a glimpse of 3rd place. He was well over a mile back, giving me a big cushion to just jog it in. I haven't looked at splits yet, but I think I averaged around 6:30 from there to the finish. I finished in 2:37:23. 1st place finished strong to nearly break 2:33. 3rd was 2:47. $250 prize for 2nd will help with travel costs later this year.
The race allowed the "elite" runners (deserving of quotes as I was the only one of the elite entries to show) to bring 2 water bottles for the course. Had to try it out and enjoyed having my own fluids for at least part of the race. Though 12 oz was a bit much for the mile 17 bottle.... a little heavy for tired arms.
Vaporflys felt nice. The legs are beat but not nearly as bad as they could have been. I'll take the rest of this week as recovery and see if I can get in a quality session on Saturday or Sunday.
The hip has improved all week with proper stretching and it wasn't bothered by the race at all. Hamstring has continued to be 100%.
Ritz won the HM in 61:2x, edging out Emmanuel Bett. Looks to be rounding into pretty good shape. I lined up near him at the start and enjoyed seeing one of my running idols in the flesh. The course doubled back early, and I saw Ritz and Bett go by when they were near 10k. Bett had about 10m on him, and I thought that was too big a gap for a fast HM. But the old man knows what he's doing.
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