I'm proud of my efforts today. I focused on being positive and ran solid (pretty easy on a downhill race). Miles 2, 4, and 5 were pretty tough climbs, especially 4. I felt it was only fair to have some steep climbs with all the downhill. I'm glad those miles came early. I was competitive and stayed in the top 8-10 range and chased people down. Then at times I was all alone for miles. I had a lot of internal conversations with myself. When I hit 10 miles "oh shit I still have 16 miles" or at 18 "oh balls I still have 8 miles left." Then I would reassure myself "you'll be fine just keep rolling." I survived a little longer until my IT bands flared up around mile 21. Maybe I'm not supposed to run races above 20 miles? A part of me wonders how I would've fared on STG's course today with a little less bruising mileage. I want to train for another marathon and lose some weight and I know I can run sub 3. Just need to strengthen the ITs.
Thoughts I had from today and the Cedar Invite:
-Many runners seem to focus on advantageous courses rather than the effort they will put out on the race. They blame bad races on a bad course. It made me realize I don't want to do that. I want to put out a good effort on any given race and not worry about courses or times so much.
-Positivity is something you need to keep spreading around. I had a lot of people talk negatively about this race with the downhill and crazy elevation. Although those are legitimate factors, I didn't worry about it too much and I was much better off for not buying what others were selling. Had I been a little more positive in those last 5 miles I might have been able to pull off a sub 3. However, the pain (undeniably terrible) definitely bogged me down with negative thoughts.
1. 5:40
2. 8:09 13:49
3. 6:25 20:14
4. 9:18 29:32
5. 7:57 37:29
6. 6:02 43:31
7. 6:02 49:33
8. 6:01 55:34 (miles 6-8, 18:05) 3 miles
9. 6:29 1:02:03 (miles 6-9, 24:34) 4 miles
10. 6:46 1:08:49 (miles 6-10, 31:20) 5 miles
11. 6:29 1:15:18 (miles 6-11, 37:49) 6 miles
12. 6:28 1:21:46 (miles 6-12, 44:17) 7 miles
13. 6:02 1:27:48 (miles 6-13, 50:19) 8 miles
14. 5:56 1:33:44 (miles 6-14, 56:15) 9 miles
15. 6:30 1:40:14 (miles 6-15, 1:02:45) 10 milles
16. 6:37 1:46:51 (miles 6-16, 1:09:22) 11 miles
17. 6:31 1:53:22 (miles 6-17, 1:15:53) 12 miles
18. 6:43 2:00:05 (miles 6-18, 1:22:36) 13 miles (good looking 13 mile stretch)
19. 7:09 2:07:14
20. 7:08 2:14:22
21. 7:08 2:21:30
22. 7:44 2:29:14
23. 8:10 2:37:24
24. 8:46 2:46:10
25. 9:40 2:55:50
26. 8:46 3:04:36
.23. 1:49 (8:06 pace)
3:06:33/7:07 mi
| 