Rce Rpts (abbreviated)

short of spare time has led to abbreviated race reports... I've had 3 races since my last post; a 15k a half marathon and a 10k all within a five week period.

Resolution Run 15k - 1:10:09 (PR!)

A 4 minute improvement from my 15k time last year and an over 1 minute improvement from my PR 3 years ago. This is not a race I had been training for. It was not even on the schedule, but something I felt I could run real strong if the situation presented itself...and it did. My scheduled 1:40 minute saturday am training run w/ the twins (alanna & janellelea) had to be canceled. My coworker / bestie of over 4.5 years had told me she was quitting. she's told me this countless times before, but this time she meant it and sad news calls for lots of drinks. Sunday AM 15k race, it is!

No expectations, I just wanted to run hard. I found myself running right at the high 7:30s for the first 6 miles. 7 & 8 got down to 7:30s, 9 was around 7:15-20, but I can't say for sure; my Garmin data got corrupted. womp womp. All I know for sure is that it was one of the strongest race I've ever raced. negative splits are always a good indicator.

Carlsbad Half Marathon - 1:44:30 (PR!)

Through 10 miles I was on track to finish right at 1:43 or faster, but I gave a lot of time back in the last 3 miles. Having come off my amazing (to me) 15K, I had a lot of confidence...especially considering the difference between a 15k and a half marathon is 'only' 3.8 miles. With that said I ditched the bottle of Perpetuum I had at the start to sip on for the first 6 miles of the race. I tossed it at mile 1 thinking the effort it would take to hold and fuss with wouldn't be worth it. I knew i had made a bad decision right at mile 10. I didn't realize there was such a thing as a half marathon wall, but i hit it. It took every bit of mental strength in me to keep pushing. Part of me wanted to settle, a PR is a PR, by seconds or minutes it'll definitely be the fastest i've ever run a half. While I didn't completely shatter my Personal Best like I had hoped (i wanted to get in at 1:41 or faster), I take huge comfort in knowing, on a bad race day I still smashed my PR by nearly 5 minutes and got under 8 min / mile on my half pace. AND i got the sweetest picture ever from it too!



Super Run 10K - 46:33 (no PR womp)

see that guy in the background of the picture above? that's Marc. For the first few years I've known him we were at the same speed, i was actually faster in the half and shorter distances...then he got fancy and hired a coach. wanting a 3:39 marathon time (similar to the > 20 minute improvement Marc saw) I enlisted in his coach's services approx a year later. He's still faster on every distance, but lately i've been creeping up on him. and if he's coming off an injury or just having a bad day (as he was at carlsbad), I can find myself zooming by him w/ .2 left saying things like "i got you today, marc!" as soon as i said it i thought 'oops, that was dickish' and as soon as i texted him that picture i thought, 'ooops, that might have lit a fire in him' and as soon as i showed it to our mutual coach i thought 'damn, i better bring my A game for the next 'showdown'...

long story short, I didn't. the plan was to go 7:15 for the first 5k and go balls out for the second to finish under 44:30 or so. couple things i learned in this race: 1) race your own race; regardless of how bad you want to beat someone. 2) mcdonalds does not constitute proper pre-race nutrition. I ran out with marc too fast. 6:50 for 3/4 mile trying to keep up with marc.