Every Race is an Adventure!

THS track with Larry and Kent. Larry was feeling ill and went home after a couple of warmup laps. I hope he feels better soon.

My legs didn't feel up to running hard this morning. While Kent was doing his 6 x 1/2 mile repeats, I decided to just do a 4 mile tempo run instead of the 6:50-ish 4 x 1 mile repeats I've done recently. I ran the first three miles at around 7:05-7:10/mi and the last mile in 6:48.

I was up late last night, and I've been really tired recently, so I chose sleep over running today. My legs felt tired yesterday, too, so I figured resting them a little before this weekend's Hobble Creek half marathon might not be bad. Unlike some people, it was hard for me to choose to sleep instead of getting up early and running. Personally, I would have preferred to run, but my body was telling me otherwise.

Water tank hills with Larry, Wayne and Kent. I didn't push the hills today, trying to save my legs a little for the Hobble Creek 1/2 this Saturday. I wasn't planning to push the last 1/2 mile either, but I couldn't resist picking up the pace a little. I had been talking about trying to equal this year my 1:26 finish at Hobble Creek last year, a 6:34/mi average pace. I was afraid of pushing the 1/2 mile downhill today and having it only be at around 6:30/mi pace. That would be discouraging to think of having to hold that pace for 26 times that distance. I decided to take the brakes off anyway. I didn't really feel like I was pushing all out, but still managed 5:58/mi pace. That is actually somewhat encouraging. The Hobble Creek race should be yet another grand adventure into realm of Paul's possibilities.

I ran 5 flat miles solo at an easy pace this morning. I had a hard time getting my tired legs moving, my hip was stiff and sore, and it felt hard to run a 9:30+ pace, so averaging 6:35/mi for 13.1 miles at Hobble Creek in two days should be a piece of cake.

Maybe I've waited long enough to file my race report that nobody will see it. Today wasn't my best run, but I feel good about it anyway.

First the splits. I think comparing this year to the last two years is pretty telling:

I woke up to discover two undesirable conditions: 1) digestive tract issues, and 2) an already warm morning with a forecast for near record highs.

I'm not sure if I was a little ill this morning, or if my digestive tract issues were simply the result of breaking my tradition of eating pasta or pancakes the evening before a race...I had a peppery steak and cheese sandwich from the Italian Place instead. Since it is now Saturday night and I don't feel sick, I suspect it was the sandwich. I didn't have an issue during the race, but after 4 potty stops prior to the race I felt a little weak and not quite 100%.

I decided to go ahead and run hard anyway to see if it was physical or mental. Looking back on the race, I think it was physical. As early as mile 2 things began to feel harder than they should, even though I was running slower than the past two years. By mile 4 or 5 I had decided I was just going to try to keep moving as fast as I could at a sustainable pace and try not to bonk.

You can tell by the splits that by mile 9 I was beginning to slow, which continued through mile 12. I think the heat was a factor. I think Josse passed me during mile 9, and Jessi passed me around mile 11. With about a mile to go I met up with Tom (not racing) who began to pace me and encouraged me to begin closing the gap on Josse and Jessi. A moment later Nathan caught up to me (despite his nursing a hamstring injury the whole way), It wasn't long before Nathan and Tom were pulling away, but they gave me enough of a boost to get me rolling the last mile. I caught and passed Josse (running on 5 weeks of training), but Jessi's kick matched mine and I couldn't catch her.

I feel good about hanging in fairly tough mentally even though my body wasn't at 100% today. I believe every race is an adventure, and today's had some unexpected challenges, but I feel good about my response and am happy with the results.

Update (official results):

Congratulations on finishing the Hobble Creek Half Marathon
on August 22, 2009.  For your records, the weather that day was
warm and beautiful.

There were 34 finishers in the Male 45 to 49 age group and
1100 finishers in the race.

Your overall finish place was 90 and your age group finish place
was 7.  Your overall finish percentile was 8 while your age group
percentile was 21.  Your time of 1:30:54.4 gave you a  6:56 pace per mile.

Complete results can be found online at www.SRCevents.com