Buttsweat Towel© season has begun

Pretty good weather for this one - 60 degrees, almost no wind and overcast.  It was pretty humid and drizzling a bit but no impact to my race.

I lined up in the middle of my designated colored group - they did a good job keeping everyone with their own bib colors.  There were about 8,000 in the timed division, and the announcer said 20,000 runners/walkers overall which seemed unreal but maybe so.  My wife used the Garmin and I don't have a memory on my watch but the splits were mostly all easy to remember.

Mile 1 - 7:15.  The first 2.5 miles were very hilly, and generally uphill.  Bigger hills than I'm used to.  I thought I was taking it easy here but thought that was a pretty realistic pace.

Mile 2 - 6:45.  Whoops.  Another uphill mile and I was wondering why I was gassed already.  I couldn't believe I had 4 more miles based on the pain.  Then I saw the mile 2 marker and I was at 14:00 exactly - now it makes sense.  Garmin would've helped there, but I'm obviously WAY too dependent on it for pacing

Mile 3 - 7:45.  My worst mile, and the first part of it had a horrific uphill climb.  It barely felt like I was moving and people were passing me like crazy.  At this point I thought I had porked the whole race again and even thought of how I'd word this failure on the blog.  Still, when I hit the mile 3 marker at 21:45, I knew I was near the highest point on the course and was still on a great pace so I got kind of a second wind.

Mile 4 - 7:15.  Mostly a gentle downhill.  Started feeling good again, and hit the mile 4 marker at 29:00 exactly - see, easy to remember splits.

Mile 5 - 7:23.  Started to push too early because I knew I had a shot at 45.  Nope, not today.  I started really dying aerobically in the middle of this mile.

Mile 6 - 7:30-ish.  Making weird noises now.  It felt like when I was on the 7th grade swim team and it was Water Polo Friday and the 8th graders spent the whole game trying to dunk/drown us instead of scoring goals.  I was gasping for air just like that.  My brain was scrambled enough that I thought I just ran an 8:30 mile instead of 7:30.

Last bit - 1:30-ish.  I really really tried to sprint here but I felt like an old lady in the fast lane as people were whizzing by me on both sides.  My limbs were flailing, probably in a hilarous way to everyone but me.

Anyway, 45:25 is a great time for me.  Could I have run smarter?  Yeah, but I really can't argue with the results.  I'm really looking forward to this half marathon where we won't have the kids.  I love 'em but it'll be nice to be able to relax and get some good sleep and enjoy the time with my wife.  She was reduced to walking for a bit this time, after that big hill in mile 3 so no PR for her today but she's still in good spirits about the half.  It'll be the first for both of us - guaranteed PRs!

Yet another day off.  I know I had a race but not running on 2 of the last 3 days actually makes me uncomfortable now...weird.

Question - I want to get in another long run before the 25th; is it ok to do it this weekend (1 week before the race) or should I try to squeeze it in this week?

My legs are still a bit sore from the race.  I'm almost certain it's due to the hills from the race - I'm just not used to them.  I really should do hill training one day.  I decided to forego Tempo Tuesday and did 3 middle miles at HMGP instead.  They ended up being in the high 7:40s and the warmup and cooldown ended up being in the 8:10s.  The average for the run was 8:01.  So the fact that the "easy" miles are starting to come down closer to 8:00 pace is a good sign, I think.  This run was done later in the morning though, so that could be the difference too.

8:27 pace.  Early-morning runs mean back to reality I guess - yesterday's easy 8:10s felt like today's easy 8:30s.  Might try for a long run tomorrow if the forecast still looks like crap this weekend.

This morning looked ok, so I went for my last long run before the race.  Temperature in the low 60s and really humid.  It reminded me of a Houston morning (sorry Flatlander).  Winds were only 5-10 mph from the east.  I actually looked forward to the headwind parts for some cooling breeze.

I took the advice y'all gave me and my goal was 10 easy miles, then 3 @ HMGP (sub-8) followed by one at 10K pace (sub-7:20).

10 easy miles: 8:35 average.  Then 7:50, 7:46, 7:41, 7:13.  I passed the HM point in 1:49-something again and finished the run with an 8:18 average.

I know I won't have that kind of energy at the end of the actual race but it sure felt nice today.  No hint of a bonk or running out of fuel, so I think those couple of long runs that I had where I ran out of gas taught my body to make up for it.  As long as I take a few Gu's and drink gatorade there shouldn't be any issues there.  Just gotta survive aerobically now, which means NOT STARTING TOO FAST.

5 recovery miles - 8:35 pace.  It was raining today but it was still more enjoyable than the TM would've been so I put on some old shoes and hit the road.  The only annoying part was the 18-wheelers coming down the highway and the 60 mph blast of water and dirt they threw at me; I could never quite avoid it, even at the extreme end of the shoulder.  I almost crossed to run with traffic but I figured getting hit by a car from behind would've been a little worse than that.

My left hip flexor has been weird this week - when I sit down for awhile and then get up, it has weird twinges until I walk around for a minute.  When I start running it's completely fine after 30 seconds - 1 minute of jogging but very awkward until then.  Anyway, because of that I decided to go easy today and just do a couple at goal pace.

But it was one of those days where you just keep noticing the pace drop, feeling great, and don't want to slow down.  Oh well - here's what ended up happening: 8:42, 8:11, 8:02, 7:50, 7:37, 7:33, 7:28, 6:47.  Average mile - 7:46.  I really only sped up purposefully on the last half mile to get the sub-7, the rest is just what the legs wanted to do.  My breathing was nice and easy, too ('til the last 0.5), which I'll take as a promising sign.  Hip isn't any worse either, probably just something to keep an eye on.

If I end up running the race next weekend without the Garmin again, I really gotta watch out for this tendency and reel it back if I see anything below 7:40 or so early on.

WM - 45.7