Denouement

65 min easy 8:15 pace.

Too much snow to head down the hill, so ran 90 min on the treadmill--it was so long!  

Mickie's bday party at night--Marion and fam came.  We went to Nickel City and I had some of the four layer cake I made for Mickie.  It was strawberry-yellow-vanilla cake swirl with purple buttercream frosting.  Now I am suffering from sugar-blah.  Good news is I didn't have a lick while making the cake, the frosting or frosting it.  So consolidated all of it into one overly sugary experience.   

First two-a- day since surgery.  Slept in, then PT appt, then drop by work, then can do my first workout of the day. 

Started at 12:20, short sleeve and shorts weather (50F).

3.73 warm up, then 10x90 sec hill repeats.  Last time I did these on the same hill (Harry's) 7.3 or so grade average, and I averaged 6:55 pace (this was mid January).  So I was hoping for 6:30 pace.  Paces averaged 6:33 and were: 6:16, 6:34, 6:28, 6:23, 6:34, 6:39, 6:32, 6:39, 6:45, 6:41. So not quite 6:30, but pace was 22 seconds faster than two months ago--I'll take it.  3.48 cool down.  It was such a long workout!   

PM run: 6:30pm 4.8 miles in 39 min

Tired! 

Ran with Mack 65 min, 8:13 pace.  Core workout.

Ran 7.13 in 55 min, listening to the NPR friday news round up, International hour.  7:43 pace.  Was really sore on Thursday from hill repeats, but feeling much better today.

Plan for this was to run it smarter than I ran the 10K, to be more conservative in the first half and do well on the uphills.

I realized as I was leaving my house, I was giving myself only 1 hour to drive, instead of the 1:45 it takes to drive there.  Oops.  So sped up there.  I got there around 7:33 (race time 8am).  I realized when I got there that I had no watch.  Brother. So I got my number then ran down to Harrison, looked at two gas stations and Smiths to see if I could find a watch, but none were sold there. So asked random people if they had a spare watch and with just minutes to start a guy takes pity on me and goes to his car to get a spare watch.  It was a gps with not a full race-worth of battery in it.  He got back about 4 seconds before the race started so I held the watch, trying to get the gps to register, during the first bit of the race.

Stephanie Talley (reigning champ of St G marathon) and Sariah Long (who beat me in the 10k) were both there.  Despite my desire to start easy got a 6:11 (plan was 6:30) first mile (uphill then downhill). Stephanie came along side.  Sariah is just behind.  I really want to take the screaming downhill mile in the second mile easy, so it doesn't thrash my legs.  Sariah comes up in the second mile and we are a three lady pack.  Pretty cool.  5:48 (plan was 5:50).  I want to push it because there are ladies around but I keep reminding myself that the race starts at mile 5. Mile 3 was 6:08 I think, it was faster than my planned 6:20, but it was a bit downhill net still, and I felt good.  Mile 4 was like a death march in the last race, rolling but net uphill, but this time felt good.  I was leading the ladies but they were right there, 6:24 I think (plan was 6:30).  Mile 5 started the nasty hill, I think I was about 7:08 (was hoping for 7:00), Sariah passed here, but I kept pretty close, didn't give up on this hill like on the 10k. Mile 6 was 7:17 (hoping for 7:00), Stephanie passes, but I keep pretty close to her, Sariah is inching further away (maybe 20 sec, Stephanie is about 5 sec up).  Mile 7 is the real meat grinder, my legs are tired and I am tired of fighting (elevation change between 3 and 7 miles is 931 feet), and they gap me the best on this mile, and my watch stops working so I am running by feel.  Finally crest at 7 miles and we have two good downhill miles ahead of me, so I start to reel them in.  Stephanie starts the downhill about 25 sec ahead of me, I close it to about 12 (I am counting at major turns), Sariah pulls up with what looked like a cramp, so I am now in second place, but there is a hill at the beginning of mile 10 that, in retrospect, I just crawled up.  Sariah must have jumped back in the race because she passes me again, and I didn't really care at that point (I really care now, and am pissed at myself for not fighting) but I crawled up the hill, then tried to finish strong.  3rd place.  Dang.

So this race was. . .character building.  Uphills are definitely not more forte.  I can handle hills less than a mile in length but these long, steep climbs are just brutal.  I definitely did better in this race than in the 10k (splits on miles 4, 5, and 6 were better), but have a lot of room for improvement.  I am very glad that the next two races in the series are not hilly beasts, which will help me to compete better.  The 18k does have a 5k uphill bit, but it is more like a 2% grade overall and in the first half and there is lots of race after it, so I am feeling good.  I need to focus now on some excellent training between now and the Ogden half ;) 

Core workout in the evening.