You mean everyone doesn't do this?

I need y'all to come up with a good excuse for me not running today, because I sure don't have one.

Slightly up-tempo trail run in the rain - always fun.

"Accept the pain, cherish the joys, resolve the regrets; then can come the best of benedictions - 'If I had my live to live over, I'd do it all the same.'" - Joan McIntosh

"Knowledge speaks, but wisdom listens." - Jimi Hendrix

"The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run." - Henry David Thoreau 

As an aside, for anyone that is familiar with the ultrarunning scene, and, in this case, the ultrarunning underworld, the Barkley finished up last night with finisher number 8, Andrew Thompson, finishing in 57 hours and change.  Oh, and when I say finisher number 8, I don't mean the 8th finisher of the race this year, I mean the 8th finisher ever (the race has been run every year since 1986, with no finishers for the first 9 years).  Quite an accomplishment.

"If we value the pursuit of knowledge, we must be free to follow wherever that search may lead us.  The free mind is not a barking dog, to be tethered on a ten-foot chain." - Adlai Stevenson Jr. 

warmup + 3x2000 + recovery + cooldown

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away."  - Anonymous, that most prolific of all authors

So I went into this race not knowing what to expect as far as my performance was concerned.  The River City 10k is a flat and fast course, so I knew that I would have no real excuses for running slow other than my own fitness.  Keeping that in mind, I decided that I would try to hang onto Eric Charette, a friend from Huntsville who has been running some fairly impressive times recently, for as long as I could.  My initial game plan was to run with him for the first mile or two and then make a judgement call as to whether to stay with him or not.

Once the race got underway, I tucked in right behind Charette and rolled through the first mile without much incident.  During the second mile, we plugged along rather smoothly, encountering the only "hill," which would more accurately be described as a slight rise on the course.  I did manage to inject some humor into the race when I mentioned to Charette as we approached "Oh no, a hill!"  We got a little chuckle out of that, both having some trail ultra experience and knowing how flat the course actually is.  In any case, we hit the second mile a little slower than the first, and I noticed I was feeling good, so I eased past Charette to take over pacing duties.  The third and fourth miles went by in a blur, being the fastest miles of my race, and they, too, proved to be rather uneventful.  Shortly after the four-mile mark, I began to slow, and Charette passed me again.  I continued to hang on over the next mile or so, but he pulled ahead a little way, and I thought I would have to finish up alone.  Fortunately enough, he began to slow as well, and we maintained a constant separation between us until just before the six-mile mark.  I then managed to catch up and overtake him at about 5.9, and I felt fine to put together a solid kick; unfortunately, my body had a different plan.  Just after the 6 mile mark, my stomach rebelled.  Suddenly, I was convinced that I was going to throw up, and rather than tough it out and let it happen, I slowed down a little in an effort to ease the nausea.  Charette, being the solid racer that he is, held the pace he was on and passed me with between one and two tenths left.  The nausea did subside, and I simply held my pace to the finish line for a time of just over 35 minutes.

I am pleased with a new 10k PR, but at the same time, I am somewhat frustrated with the final minute of the race, during which I both missed out on getting under 35 and lost to Charette.  Oh well, I guess that gives me something to shoot for; Eric ran a great race, which was exactly what I was counting on him to do.  In any case, the race was a lot of fun, it was well organized, and it made for a great run. 

For what it's worth, my mile splits were:

5:33

5:49

5:29

5:31

5:47

5:35~ish

1:23  (last 0.2)

Revised: Final time 34:59.  I feel a little better.

yay

"That which we persist in doing becomes easier, not that the task itself has become easier, but that our ability to perform it has improved." - Ralph Waldo Emerson 

"It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and our reasons for living." - Simone de Beauvoir

HA! They revised the official results for the River City Run last weekend, which gave me the time I thought I had when I finished of 34:59.  PR under 35 for a 10k. (Hey, it might not be the fastest out there, but it's exciting for an ultrarunner...)

"I like life.  It's something to do." - Ronnie Shakes

"In politics, absurdity is not a handicap." - Napoleon Bonaparte 

"I will not allow yesterday's success to lull me into today's complacency, for this is the great foundation of failure." - Og Mandino 

runs like this are the reason i love this sport.  if you cant sleep and are looking for something to do at 230 in the morning, lace up the shoes and hit the road

4 x mile mixed in with a little mileage for the day to make up for my less than copious mileage week thus far. 

5:43

5:42

5:42

5:39

Maybe I can reestablish some consistency for the remainder of the week...

 

"Of course there is no formula for success except perhaps an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings." - Arthur Rubinstein

"Ahhh. A man with a sharp wit. Someone ought to take it away from him before he cuts himself." - Peter da Silva

"We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing.  Action always generates inspiration.  Inspiration seldom generates action." - Frank Tibolt 

"Hills are speedwork in disguise." - Frank Shorter

That's great, because I must have done the slowest speedwork ever today.

And hills mixed into a fartlek are just mean

"The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes of mind." - William James

"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered.  An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." - G.K. Chesterton