How to begin? This is how I want to begin because I am truly excited for my friend Melanie: Think Mary Murphy from "So you think you can dance" and I am Julie Crossley from "So you think you can RUN?" Cause Melanie can and she just boarded the HOT TAMALE train, WOOOOOO wooooo!!!! SCREAM scream SCREAM --head shaking wildly here. In fact the top 5 all belong on the HOT TAMALE train!!! What an awesome group of fast women at this race today. Melanie came in 2nd overall in 1:22:56, five kids, a nursing baby, one kid throwing up in the tent at 2am and a true POWER WOMAN!!!! She got $500 instead of 400 because the first place woman, unfortunately for her : ( could not accept money because she is a collegiate runner. Anyway she ran awesomely at 19 years old and Melanie hung on to second by over 23 seconds, YEE HAW!!!! Okay now my not as excitiing race report but nonetheless a BIG PR for me.
I was first master (no money here.....yet), 10th overall and ran way beyond my goal for the day: 1:29:15. I am so happy. Again, I had gas left in the tank, and didn't give my all under the cirumstances because I don't risk injury when tired and environmentally challenged. I took it easy the first two miles as the AIR quality was poor and I didn't want to have an asthma attack. A fire has been in the park since June 14th!!! There is a morning haze of smoke all through our campgroud (Rubys). I didn't sleep but one brief 40 minutes in a row and got out of my tent 4 times to use the restroom. I felt the race should have started at 1am. I got more and more tired the longer I couldn't fall asleep. But at 12 to 1am I was a live wire raring to go. By 4am I was thinking I should have been at work.... great by 6am I will be ready for bed. That's working nights for you. It totally screws up your sleep cycle. But I tried to stay positive and try my hardest to get that rabbit out of the hat. I've run a marathon on no sleep, no problem here. Here are my splits, mile three I think I had wings on : D pace all over the place, mile markers are like the ones seen on highways, invented by the race director. I got to learn to run by feel someday.
1: 6:56 Ahh nice and easy
2: 7:05
3: 5:48 No kidding, astronomical, I lose my wings for unbelief after this.
4: 6:37
5: 6:47
6: 6:17 I am a yo-yo. Fast or slower, which is it going to be? Save energy for the end three puney hills.
7: 6:52
8: 7:04
9: 6:46
10: 7:11 Don't care cause this course is so friendly, no major obstacles ahead so I think after the next mile I will try to run in at 7s.
11: 7:17
12: 7:00 : D DDDDD Passed two women.
12.1: 33 seconds, obviously off since that is a 5:36 pace, right?
13.1 6:57 !!! I passed a woman that passed me at mile 2. She looked over 40 and I could see her the whole race, she blazed it on the downhill but I finally caught her 1/4 mile gain on me and decided to try and actually fight to the finish. I usually lose all my guts at this point but I dug deep. This mile probably could be averaged with the .1 that was off so probably faster here slower there. Realized at the finish that I was first master and the girl I passed was 41. She came in 5 seconds after me. I also passed a couple of guys here. Glad I had guts today. No chip timing so all is fair here. Loved this course minus the embers in the air. Hope to run this again in the comfort of an airconditioned hotel room. Really feel this course to be quite enjoyable. I can't believe I broke my PR by over 4 minutes!!! | 