Aaron was pacing a friend in the Bear 100, so I slept at my brother's home in Mt. Green the night before the race and arranged for two of my kids to be with my brother and his family for the day. The other two kids went with my sister and her family for the day. Thank goodness for family support!
Thanks to a short 20 minute drive, I arrived early in Huntsville. Found Cynthia Fowler and enjoyed catching up with her on the bus ride to the start. Tried to find Caisa, but we didn't connect until the starting line. Also connected with Sariah Long on the start line.
Unfortunately, we all had different goal paces so we weren't really going to be able to run as a pack for long. Cynthia was shooting for 5:55 pace and I knew I'd be broken by that pace. I wanted to see if I cold hold 6:05ish pace. Sariah and Caisa were shooting for more of a 6:10 pace.
As soon as the gun went off, we all settled into our paces and spread apart.
There was not much depth to the men's field, so I found myself running alone for pretty much the entire race. Felt like a long, lonely tempo run. I could see Cynthia up ahead knocking out her 5:55 pace and I just kept clipping away the best I could. I didn't feel particularly fit and strong, but it was a solid workout anyway.
The course was a nice gentle downhill with some rollers in the middle and pretty much flat the last four miles. Dropped about 800ft in elevation mostly in the first nine miles.
The race didn't start until 9:30 a.m., so it was pretty hot and dry from about 5 miles onward. I took water or gatorade at every aid station so as to not shrivel up like a raisin, but was still quite overheated the last few miles.
Splits were 5:49, 6:06, 5:54, 6:04, 6:08, 6:05, 6:15, 6:07, 6:13, 6:14, 6:20, 6:13 Final .1 in 5:55 pace
It was a very hard effort for me and I feel good about the day. Mostly it was empowering to push myself and run fast again!!
Cynthia was 1:19:30, I was 1:20:54, Sariah was 1:23:41, and Caisa had a rough second half but still finished strong in 1:31:30.
Did a 2 mile warm up and 3 mile cool down with Cynthia, so I had 18 miles for the day. The best part of the race was socializing with friends and enjoying the beautiful Fall scenery!
| 