Winning Back What I Lost

First run after a week off fishing.  Slow and easy pace.  Weather is cooling down quite a bit now which is a welcome change.  Time to get some more cold weather gear.  My wife cancelled our gym membership and I sold my treadmill last year.  I really only used the gym during the winter months anyway. 

630AM:  Early morning run after a late evening run.  Very cold this morning (mid 30's).  Quads are still a little sore 10 days after SGM.  It's really hard for me to get back to the grind following a big marathon.  Having that week off from running made me miss it a little bit, which is probably a good thing. 

640AM:  Slow and easy pace.  Got a late start this morning.  Not as cold today but still on the chilly side.  Legs are still in the recovery stage- sore but not painful. 

1230PM:  Lunchtime run on GB.  Covered a good portion of the Barber 2 Boise 10k course in preparation for Saturday's race.  1M warm, 4M @ 7:24/mi pace, 1M cool.  Had a helicopter hover over the top of me and grab some water from the Boise River to dump on a fire in the nearby foothills.  Very cool. 

My eldest son is 15 now and my days of beating him in anything shorter than a half marathon are behind me.  But I'm ok with it.  Really, I am. :)

My second year running this race. It's one of the premiere running events in Boise.  There's the Race to Robie Creek in the spring and Barber to Boise in the fall.  All of the other races, including the two marathons, really pale in comparison.  It begins at Barber Park on the Boise River and on the northeastern edge of town.  From there its mostly flat or slightly downhill along the river to the finish line inside Bronco Stadium. 

As for the race: I lost touch with Martin w/in the first mile.  There are not a lot of younger runners in this race and he was shooting for an age division win.  Based upon last year's results, I told him he had an excellent shot.  After the race, he told me that he got a little freaked out when the 5kers merged with the 10k runners at the stadium and he could see lots of younger kids who were suddenly in front of him.

Can you asphyxiate on half a cup of water from an aid station?  I certainly tried.  About mile 2.5 I tried to get down a cup of water at full speed.  I've probably run a couple dozen of these races over the past 2+ years and I STILL cannot down water while running.  It amazes me to watch some of these runners on TV grab a cup and down it with one swig.  If I haven't acquired that skill by now I don't know that I ever will.

Splits:

Mile 1- 7:04; Mile 2- 7:06; Mile 3- 7:13; Mile 4- 7:16; Mile 5- 7:14; Mile 6- 7:13; .2- 6:44.

That's a new PR by about a minute and a half.  One thing that really helped this year as compared to last year was they finally went to a wave start w/ four different groups.  The course funnels everyone onto the narrow Boise River Greenbelt which is beautiful but not really conducive to such a large race. 

I felt like I went out a little too fast the first couple of miles trying to keep Martin in sight.  He just got stronger and so I backed it off a touch and found a nice pace that I was able to repeat the rest of the race.  To cap it all off we had a nice pancake breakfast, live music, and some nice photos/video of Martin and I on the hallowed blue turf of Bronco Stadium. A pretty good day.