AM- Ran one of the Corporate Shield races in Gvl today, the Milliken Earth Run. It's a 5k run all on the beautiful arboretum of the Milliken campus. It's rolling hills on a mowed-weeds course, very lumpy and bumpy with some roots- pretty much a high school XC course. In other words, I love it. I won it two years ago but knew there would be some competition in the field of 600, plus my legs were tired from the end of a 100 mile week. My family came, which was great, and we enjoyed the nice, 50 deg and sunny weather.
Warmed up, then started the race side by side with Jim. In fact, we led right from the gun- no high schoolers darted off the front or anything. Jim and I ran step for step the first mile in 5:11, then he pulled ahead and had about 2 second on me a few minutes later. There was one set of footsteps behind us, but eveyone else was way back. We hit a gradual downhill and I caught and passed Jim. I thought he might come with me but I gapped him and kept extending my lead. Mile 2 was 5:29, then the last 1.1 was 6:06. Final time was 16:47, slower than my 16:30 win a few years ago. Jim finished 17:09, Ashley 10 sec was behind him, then there was a gap before a slew of GE guys came in. Jim hadn't felt good all race, but a group of us cooled down. Seeing my win excited my girls, who then insisted on running a little ways with me, too. Fun race.
Third 100 mile week in a row is over, now it's time for a very easy taper to Leatherwoods 50 mile next week. Should be competitive, with Brian Rusiecki and Shaun Pope battling for the prize money. Then it's recover and a little more training for Massanutten 100.
Unfortunately, 3 of my kids are sick and Marci's starting to get sick, too. This only happens to us the week before a race. Which means, I'll start feeling bad the next couple of days. I hate it when months of training goes down the tube thanks to a poorly-timed virus.
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