I'm racing this afternoon, but wanted to mention that Davy Crockett is approaching 103 miles in his 24 hour race (www.acrosstheyears.com). The race ends for him at 9 a.m. He has set PR's at 50K, 50M, 100K and 100M. Right now he is in 3rd place. Jim Skaggs is in the 72 hour race there and at 120 miles. He appears to be struggling, but is still continuing to keep on moving. Go post some emails there and cheer them on! /*****************************************/ Race Report: 1 mile warmup OK - Sasha wanted me to do a 5K time trial to see how fast I can go. I was really scared about this because I knew I would have to be uncomfortable the entire race. I also knew that I had to overcome a mental block I have that says I cannot run fast on the road. Mile 1 - I started out pretty fast, but was kind of bummed that I was soon in last place. I decided that I needed to keep pushing myself and would look at my watch and sometimes say 'wow' and other times say 'push'. 9:10 - the body was warming up. I was breathing hard, but not feeling tired - so far so good on the mental block. Mile 2 - Sasha passed me on the out and back shortly after the start of mile 2. I was speeding up at times, but still dead last and making no progress at picking off other runners. It looked like they were all running easily. Benjamin encouraged me at 1 3/4 saying "you can do it." That was nice. Shortly after the turnaround, one of the guys that was running with a girl about 20 feet ahead of me, slowed down to a walk. Chicked him.....9:07 Mile 3 - I kept telling myself I could push harder. Breathing was really difficult at this point in time. I was really spent. Chicked another guy right around 2.5 miles. There was a small uphill and I tried to push up it. I could see the church where we finished and kept saying "get me to the church on time." With two turns to go I was pushing hard and feeling like I wanted to quit but refusing to quit. Shortly after that turn Sasha and Julia came back and got me and kept telling me to catch up and give them 5. I think I caught up twice. Sasha also guided me on the fastest area to run in to avoid ice. 8:51 Home Stretch: Sasha was telling me to sprint. I couldn't get anything else out of my body and was trying hard, but just didn't have any get up and go left. (on pace for 8:10 - so I guess I did sprint some). That was just plain HARD! But so satisfying. I took almost 3.5 minutes off my previous PR and that was on a short course. It sure felt good to quit running. Sasha kind of looked at me like 'I told you you could do it.' Sarah said he must have been pleased at my effort because he wasn't yelling at me. :)
Avg: 9:01/Max 7:07
2 miles cooldown with Sarah (12:00 avg) I won a blue ribbon and $2 in prize money for winning my age group (ok - I was the only old person there). I am going to frame my award and prize money.
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