High-Octane

Chosen Half Marathon coming up this Saturday. I think I've made it through the training cycle (if you can call it that) and will be able to race. My right foot continues to give me problems. I have been to the physical theropist twice and now they are sending me back to the orthopedic doctor this Wedensday. My toe won't really bend up and the bottom, at the joint, is very..very sore. The physical theropist doesn't know what to do.  My left foot continues to have intermittent sharp pains. I know, I know...just a lot of whining here. :-(

When I signed up for the race, I was hoping to run a decent race but now I'm afraid I may have to settle for a disappointing slow run. Aiming for a 7:25 pace (which would still be my 10th slowest out of 11 half races in the last five years) seems too optomistic. I'm really thinking that if I can break the 7:30 avg pace I would be doing the best I could based on my condition. Anyway...feel free to estimate my race time based on my haphazard training. :-) The good news is they are breaking the awards into age groups of 5's this year. I must say I'm glad to be running in the 55-59 group this year. Before I was always wanting to run in the 30-40 age group! :-)

The course in now a point to point and not an out and back as it has been in the last years. I was hoping it would make it faster but looking at the elevation chart it seems to have more hill in the first half now. In the first two miles there is a stretch that rises 200' in about a half mile, I may walk that portion!

Here's my run for today:

Well I guess you can consider this my signature race since I've run it 5 times now. This year was the first time its been a Point to Point race though. The race has normally been in October but this year they moved it to November, I assume to try and have it when the weather is more conducive to running. But, needless to say, that was a fail as the weather was very hot and humid. It was 67 degrees, 100% humidity and foggy during most of the race. The norther blew in very quickly for the last mile of the race, oh how I was hoping it would blow in at the start.

As you know I was ill prepared for this race as I have been recovering from foot/toe surgery for 8 months now. I had to go to Florada to a trade show on Thursday and Friday also and walk the trade show floor for two solid days. I was very concerned as my foot was very sore and swolen all day Friday and as I flew home that evening. I decided to take a regiment of vitamin I starting on Friday and thankfully it did the trick as my foot was bearable before and during the race. My left foot has actually been much better lately and I haven't had any sharp pains for a few days. (I'm hoping the pain I was seeing in that foot was only a nerve condition and not a tendon condition.)

I would say the race was not as enjoyable overall as in the past years. Since it was a Point to Point race this year, they had to bus people to the start with some of the bus assignments starting as early as 4:00 am. My ride was at 5:30 am. I feel sorry for the people who had the 4 am rides as they had to wait 3 hours for the race to start. I heard a lot of complaints about this. The good thing is they bused us to the start where there was an indoor resort lodge were we could wait. Luckly it was warm so the lodge, which would only hold a hundred or so people, was not packed, most were just outside waiting.

I felt good at the beginning of the race and was hoping to pull off some miricle run. The first mile felt pretty good and I ran it as planned close to 7:30 pace. Miles 2 & 3 I tried to keep an even effort through some small rolling hills but was suprised that my HR was already well above 160.  At mile 4 I decided I needed to let off the pace a little to try and keep my HR from rising any more. As you can see I ran the next four miles with a very consistant effort but obviously at a much slower pace than I wanted. I could already feel my quads tightening up around mile 4 or 5. Knowing that feeling doesn't go away but only gets worse I just tried to maintain the effort through mile 7. Mile 8 and 9 are mostly flat with some slightly down hill so I tried to pick up the pace a little and knowing the dreaded mile 10 was coming up I hoped to pick up a little time before that awful 1 mile climb. I slogged through mile 10 at a blazing 8:10 pace with my quads really screaming at this point of the race. I knew that if I could get through mile 10 I would be able to at least crawl to the finish line. Mile 11 is a nice long straight run with some long rolling ups and downs and I felt like I was gaining some confidence back so I pushed a little on the last half of the mile. I had caught up to a group of four people and decided to challange them to a sprint to the finish. They took me up on that challange and we ran together for the next mile or so but each one dropped off through the next couple of miles. The last one dropped off at mile 12.5 as I picked up the pace to below 6:00. As I pulled away he said "I give up". I just smiled internally and continued to push to the end.

Obviously this was not my best race timewise but I do feel like I controlled a high level of effort throughout the race. My quads have confirmed that effort the last couple of days. 

I am not sure what is up next for me in running and racing. I have to get this foot healed if I am to continue. I cannot continue to go through the pain I'm having....The runnings is not fun right now.