1 mile at the house at around 6:50 a.m to help the tummy get going if you know what I mean. 2.6 mile warm up at the start. This could have been a bad choice. I ran up the hill after the bus dropped up of for a little over a mile. I needed a good warm-up but not a steep uphill. At the start I could see fast people everywhere and decided that Dave and I had our work cut out for the race. We jumped on with Nick M, and a UVSC runner (last name Moody). Here's how the race boiled down: 1. 4:40- A fast first mile but I knew it would be on that steep downhill sections. All 4 of us are together and Hip Hip Jose is out in the lead pulling his usual stunt. 2. 5:10- The course rolls through some washes and stuff so it's up and down through here. Moody and Nick are up on Dave and I but we're not too far back. 3. 5:01- I try and really work on this mile. Nick drops the Moody guy and it looks as if I can go get him... so I surge hard in a few places. 3 miles in 14:51! 4. 5:23- I wanted this mile to be better but as we turned uphill into the houses I started to drift and really struggled to get to the top where it turns and heads back down to the main road. Dave is close as we are going up, but on the downhill back out I try to put a few seconds on. 5. 5:35- I'm still back in no mans land and totally up for grabs if Dave wants to take me out. One this mile Nick and Moody miss a turn and head straight in to the finish. At the point that I turned I'd say I was 1 min back from Nick and around 25 seconds back from Moody. So Dave and I turn back uphill and weave our way through the desert. 6. 5:36- I'm still just hanging around. Now my mind is racing thinking about how those guys missed the turn and what would become of it all. I decide to give it just a little more to lose Dave for good and I think he is gone... Well as I turn the corner at the round-a-bout out of the corner of my eye I see him ROLLING like 3 seconds away. So I quickly shift gears. .2 miles in 56 seconds- I surge hard for about 400 m to discourage Dave from coming up. Then once I realized he was o.k with it I was o.k with it and I just coasted on in. 2.5 Ran back to find Mik'L and she was doing great and most likely could have done better without me giving her the splits and stuff. She did a good job smashing the hour mark with a 56:30 I think. The race was pretty good. I didn't care about what the time was because I didn't know what to expect from this course. All I wanted was to go run to my potential considering the training and such... and for the most part I think I did. The steep warm-up mile might have slowed me down just a little through the 4th or 5th mile. But when it was over I was happy with a 5:14 min mile avg on that course. It is still hard to judge where Dave and I are right now (we're both so close in our shape). The only thing I keep telling myself is that we should be good with the 5 or 6 weeks straight at 100 miles or more. I know this is kind of uncharted territory for us but should yield some great results later this spring and summer. 5 mile run this afternoon. After the race I spent the rest of the day here in front of the computer and on the couch watching some college hoops with some naps. When I finally started to move around I was starting to get tight. So I decided to do a little shake out and loosen up while pushing the week over 100- I was at 98- just to close to just leave it. I have OCD! (Landreth 16.6) |