Very warm day today. When the car thermometer says it's already 76 degrees at 4:30am it's a bad sign. Felt great for 21 miles and was on pace for 3:09ish then things went really bad really fast and I went from 6:45 for mile 21 to 8:20-8:50 pace the last 5 miles. Considering the warm temps and bit of head wind after mile 8 I feel OK about the race. I just don't seem to do well in heat. I did more daytime training this year than other years and I think it helped but not enough to get me past 21 miles in 1 piece. Talked to about 30 people and maybe 28 of them had the same type experience crashing and burning sometime in the last 10 miles with just a couple lucky runners managing to have a great race. Splits info below (goal pace and how many seconds -/+ ahead/behind of goal time) 1 - 7:37 (7:30 +7) stuck in the pack but OK with this mile being slow 2 - 7:28 (7:30 +5) nice to have a bit of tail wind for these early miles
3 - 7:00 (7:00 +5) Starting to feel really good, have to force myself to stay on pace. 4 - 6:51 (7:00 -4) 5 - 7:16 (7:15 -3) 6 - 6:41 (6:45 -7) 7 - 6:50 (6:45 -2) 8 - 8:09 (8:15 -8) Veyo - our nice little tailwind has turned into a mildly annoying headwind that continues most the rest of the race - also starting to warm up 9 - 7:54 (8:00 -14) Still feeling really good through this stretch 10 - 7:55 (7:45 -4) Getting bored with Dammaron Valley, lose my focus a little bit as I'm looking forward to some downhill 11 - 8:04 (8:00 -0) 12 - 7:30 (7:15 +15) Not too worried about the slower pace as I know I'll make up some time on the downhill miles soon to come 13 - 7:06 (7:15 +6) 14 - 7:14 (7:15 +5) 15 - 6:42 (7:00 -13) Downhill fun begins! I love this section of the course 16 - 6:34 (6:45 -24) 17 - 6:53 (7:00 -31) 18 - 7:00 (7:00 -31) 19 - 7:39 (7:30 -22) Since I've banked some time on the downhill I reward myself by slowing down a bit up the hill 20 - 7:20 (7:00 -2) First signs of trouble but still on pace 21 - 6:45 (6:45 -2) Shortly after I finish this mile I majorly crash and burn. I was quite surprised how suddenly and how completely I died just after this mile. 22 - 8:35 (7:00 race has gone to pot now and I'm +a zillion seconds off pace, don't care anymore just figure I'll make sure to qualify for Boston - 3:25. With hindsight I should have maybe had a more ambitious goal to get me through these last 5 miles like sub 3:15 or something. When all you have to average is 11 min miles to get the BQ it's not much of a motivator. I do alot of run/walk the rest of the race 23 - 8:28 (6:45) 24 - 8:41 (7:00) 25 - 8:53 (7:00) 26 - 8:30 (7:00) .2 - 1:54 (1:30) My quads are pretty hammered but other than that I don't feel too bad. Looking forward to a rest week or 2 or month then maybe start training for Painters.
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