Day of the last Striders series race. I went in not really knowing what to expect- I am 95% recovered from my sickness, but I first got sick Mar 18 and essentially missed 3 weeks of good training. I was in 3rd place in the series, 29 seconds ahead of Ben. My only goal was to hold onto 3rd place. I planned to take it out slow at 6:30 pace and then see what happened after mile 9. 3 miles warmup.
Pretty good weather- probably 30 deg, slight breeze the whole way. Sunny- shorts, singlet, gloves and hat. Found out at the start that Tim Wight would not run because he has a stress fracture in his pelvis- ouch! Get well soon, buddy.
Mile 1 was with Ben, Nate Pollard, Cody, and Chad- 6:54 (mile was a bit long), then Cody and Chad pulled away and I ran with the other 2. Mile 2 was 6:16, then 4 miles between 6:29-6:34. Then we did 3 miles of 6:50-6:56 pace up a gradual incline with a slight headwind. First 9 miles were very easy for me (I could have done ~30 seconds faster per mile), but I was just fine with that. After the top, we picked it up a bit- 6:26 for mile 10, then 6:10 and 6:06. When we hit mile 12, Ben (who did SLC marathon last week) and Nate decided to slow down to 7:00 pace while I kept going with a 6:08 and a 6:03. At mile 15 I was starting to feel my 6:10 pace and hit some gradual uphills which continue through the end of the course- Cody says they at 20 seconds slower than the previous miles. I did a 6:18, 6:23, 6:24, then 6:26. Felt pretty tired but actually maintaining a decent pace. I got passed by Jeff M at mile 18- tried to hold him off but he had a good head of steam. Last 0.6 in 4:02. 4th place overall, 3rd in the series. I met my goal. Sub-2:00 would have been nice, but the first 9 miles were too slow for that. Very slow 1.5 miles cool down.
Chad easily won, 1:53, and Cody took second, 1:55. They had decided whoever won would take the other and myself to breakfast, so Chad took us to a good little restaurant. Thanks, Chad. Top 3 FRB sweep in the men's overall for the series- Chad, Cody, and myself. Sasha and Steve should be happy. We even got some comments on how nice our matching shirts looked. Big congrats to Chad and Cody and all the other series runners.
I was happy with today- I got 3rd in the series and got a good training run for the marathon. Based on today, I'm not really going to taper for Ogden marathon and will aim for a 2:50 time- not going to push it, just use it as training for the rest of the year- start slow, see what I have left at mile 18. Feel good, with a slight pain in my right knee that I will monitor.
Adrenaline- 299
Tangent- 187 | 