Back in the saddle?

Race results are finally up, 50 hours after I finished!  I ran 2 seconds faster than I thought.  I'm happy with my place divisions too: top 25% overall, top 12% of women, and top 15% of females 30-34.  The results also list my age grade: 58.64%, which I hope to greatly improve to whatever my maximum potential is.

It was about 60 degrees at the start, with some wind.  Sometimes I psych myself up too much for a race, so I felt kind of "off" all day Saturday (scratchy throat, unstable stomach, etc.).  But I woke up feeling great on Sunday.  The race starts on Coronado Island and runs past the beautiful Hotel del Coronado in the first mile.  There's a slight downhill, and an uphill before mile 6 (overpass).  At mile 9.5, the race does an out and back to 12.5, and then heads to the finish.  There is a short, but somewhat steep hill at about 10.5, which was brutal, but then we immediately got to go downhill.  There was a .5 mile straightaway to the finish, which was kind of frustrating because it was still so far!

I ran with Amanda for the first 10K.  She called out our pace, because she was prepared and had her Garmin!  Here are my splits, up to mile 12.  It got messed up after that.  8:39, 8:40, 8:44, 8:45, 8:35 (hill), 8:41, 8:29, 8:38, 8:25, 8:31, 8:01 (hill), 8:33, ????  I'm not sure about mile 12 either, because I think the mile marker was wrong.  I was SO CLOSE to a PR, and to breaking 1:50.  I look at my earlier splits and wonder if I could have gone a little faster then, but I truly know that I gave 100%.  I tend to start conservatively and make it up later on.  I don't know if it's the best racing strategy, but I love picking up the pace late in a race!  When I ran the 8:01 split, I was really encouraged, but it turned out that I wasn't able to hold that pace, even on the downhill.  At the end, my lungs felt fine, but my legs were shot.  So, I need to work on the anaerobic component of my running.

Overall, I am very encouraged by my time, ESPECIALLY when I'm doing all easy mileage in my training.  Based on my current fitness, I think I'll be able to PR (sub-3:54) at my January marathon-yippee!

Well, tonight was a monumental struggle.  I'm not sure if it was (a) residual soreness/ tiredness from the half marathon; (2) trying to get back in the groove after 2 1/2 days of not running; or (3) all the junk food I had today and last night.  I think it's a combination of the three.  Someone at our office is filling every jar, bowl, etc. with CHOCOLATE!  It's everywhere, and I can't avoid it!  Help!

Anyway, tonight was much slower than normal.  I finished in 1:09:51, a 9:59 average.  My mile splits were 9:48, 10:06, 10:09, 10:17, 10:03, 9:56, and 9:36.  I had twinges here and there, probably from the race.  I'm hoping tomorrow I'm back to (or close to) normal.

More good news about the race: I figured out that I ran the last 1.1 mile at a 7:55 pace.  I had run mile 11 at 8:01 and slowed back to 8:33, I think for 12, but I was able to pick it up even more for the finish, which probably includes the sprinting at the end.  I'm sure people everywhere are making fun of me for the sprinting part!

Tonight felt much better, but I'm still not back to 100%.  I'm still a little bit sore.  My quads started hurting a bit at mile 5, and I could really feel everything after stretching.  Thinking back, though, I have never run a half marathon as part of marathon training, where I had to immediately jump back into high mileage after the half.  So, although I wish I had recovered faster, I'm glad to be doing 7 miles again already.

Total time was 1:08:29, a 9:47 average.  My mile splits were: 9:55, 9:53, 9:48, 9:51, 9:47, 9:50, and 9:26.  I ran negative splits of one minute.  I'm happy that my splits were not all over the map tonight.  They were pretty close together, except for the usual "turbo" last mile.

I plan on getting up early and running tomorrow morning.  I'm attending continuing education for work all day, and I don't have to be there until 8:30!

Well, this has been a weird week.  I think the race took more out of me than I thought.  I've been exhausted all week, so I didn't get up yesterday morning to run.  My next big mistake was wearing stilettos yesterday.  I wear high heels almost every day, but I had to walk a lot yesterday (from parking garage to continuing ed course to lunch and back, etc.).  Sadly, my husband's oldest friend's father died this week.  Last night was the viewing.  I wore the same shoes and stood for 1 1/2 hours.

The funeral was this morning at 10:00 am.  I was supposed to do 18 miles this morning, but given my sluggishness this week and my ACHING legs from the stilettos, I was worried something might go wrong, and I'd get stuck 9 miles away and miss the funeral!  So, instead of just doing 10 or so, my lazy butt stayed in bed.

Lesson learned: half marathons require more recovery than I thought!  I'm glad I did it now and not 3 or 4 weeks before the marathon.  They can also cause a temporary zap in motivation!  I'm looking forward to next week!