Hurricane Half Marathon. The old slogan for this race was "She's fast but she aint easy." Well today she wasn't fast and I could have easily stayed home. Mentally feeling like I'm ready to race again from the post Boston taxation, but two miles into the race and physically I know I'm not were I want to be. I ran without a watch or gps so I have no splits... but the race went something like this. From the gun I go out and just want to burry everyone and give myself some breathing room to run a relaxed race. I've never tried this before and it obviously doesn’t work. So I take the lead into a pretty hard head wind, and we are not going very fast almost from the git go. Two miles into it I back way off and see if anyone else will come plow the way- no one comes. So I surge and want to drop them (2 guys behind me) but they just close the gap. Just past mile three Glen says he will "plow" for the next three miles and I gladly let him drive. Although now the wind is hitting us at a side angle so it's not really helping. We make our way uphill the next three miles and I jump back into the drivers seat and continue to battle the hill for one mile then Glen drives. Just past mile 8 we crest the hill and start the downhill. Now Glen is 15 seconds ahead of me and I want to close the gap. So the steep downhill lasts for about a mile and a half- about .8 into the downhill I catch him and we chat for a second then I pass him and go down into LaVerkin. As we make our way through town Glen pulls up and then starts to run away from me just past mile 10. Here is where I'm pretty confident and should put up a fight, but there is nothing to give. Glen looks like he's flying but in reality I'm just slowing down. So I just put my tail between my legs and made my way to the finish line knowing that this was a slow race. I expected to be under 1:14 no matter what and was floored when I saw my time of a 1:16 something. Glen ended up winning with a 1:15 something. He ran a pretty good race, but bottom line I didn't have an "A" game to bring. I'm not too pumped about this one even though last year I ran the same course without headwind in 1:20. I feel like I could have done way better, but maybe this course is harder than it seems it should be. Yes, I want some cheese with my whine! I've got four good solid weeks before my next race. I hope by then I can be recovered and ready to go. So this next week I may cut it way back and then hit it for the three remaining weeks or maybe not- at this point I'm not sure. |