The outlook wasn't brilliant for the Jeppsen two today.
Right now an 8:30 pace feels easy enough for several miles, so I thought that a sub-45 time for this morning's 8k was completely realistic. Sure it was a trail race with some uphill, but there'd be downhill to balance that out, right? My goal time was still 10 minutes slower than last year's winner, but I thought I had a good chance of being in the top half. At the starting line I scoped out the other women and did my usual thing of guessing who would be fastest based on people's leanness and outfits. I picked out who I thought would win and decided to try to be able to see them for at least the first while. They took off at a pace that felt a little fast but totally sustainable for five miles. Then we got out of the parking lot, and I remembered that I prefer running on roads/sidewalks. When we hit the first hill I remembered that I don't really have any muscles. And on the second hill I started walking on the ups, not really caring on the flats, and trying not to fall down on the downs. I guess I can't really expect to be good at trail running (or even enjoy it) if I don't ever run on trails, even if some of my runs include hills. And I'm used to being kind of bummed out about being slow after trail races, but they're usually a good experience overall because Eric likes them so much and often does really well. This morning he had talked about maybe just running with me because of his knee, but he took off at the beginning and I was glad to not see him for the rest of the course because I thought that meant he was getting back to normal. It was kind of depressing to get to the end and realize it hadn't gone well for him, either. After the race it was fun to see Jun and his son, and I got to talk a little bit to an awesome (because she was fast and had really cute kids (one had these crazy little squeaker shoes that kept scaring Tigger (it was funny))) woman who was sitting near us, and Eric and I were both rewarded (despite our mediocrity) with door prizes. Then we went and signed a lease for an apartment in Provo (yeah...Provo...). Maybe when we live there I'll try adding a few trails like this morning's to my runs. It's short enough that I could do it often-ish, and maybe then I'd have a better time at trail races.
Splits: 9:42, 15:44, 10:02, 10:21, 9:21. Third in age division (like an hour longer than the winner), 44th overall (including men), bottom half.
| 