Fun race!
This entry was posted on 3/27/2011 3:13 PM and is filed under uncategorized.
I wasn't really sure what to expect out of my legs today. I have really done any fast running since February, so... But I knew this was a small race, and with the temperature hovering just about freezing when I got up this morning, I was thinking that this race might turn out to be a solo time trial. But it turned out much better.
Got the the start plenty early and did my normal warm up, 2 miles plus some long race pace strides. Then it was time to go. Once we got to the start I saw a guy I know who usually beats me, in fact I've never beat him before. The gun goes off and the course is immediately funneled into a very narrow path. It was a slow start with a few guys taking it out easy, but there was no where to pass. I just hung back until it opened up a bit, then me and this other guy really started the race. By about the 1/2 mile we were all alone. Unfortunately there were no mile markers so I don't have reliable splits. But we were definitely cruising. The course was 3 short laps, just slightly over a mile each. We ran side by side for just about the entire race. I threw out some surges to see if I could get away, but he stayed right on my shoulder each time.
Coming to the end of the final lap I told myself I had it, I was going to win. And with about 200m to go, I put the hammer down. He was right with me for about 100m. The he started to fade a bit, then I heard him break. When you're up on your toes sprinting, you don't make much noise, so I could barely hear him drift back, then I heard his feet go flat and his turnover slowed down, I had him. In the end I wound up beating him by 9 seconds. Thats a pretty good gap to put on someone in just 200m!
So I won! in a time of 17:59. I was hoping to run 5:40 pace but when you're running for the win, the pace doesn't matter any more. But I measure the loop with my GPS, then again with google maps and I'm almost positive the course was a little long. Both times I measured, it came out to 3.16 instead of 3.1 miles. Doesn't seem like much, but that's actually about 100m. Enough to take maybe 20 seconds off my time, which put me at just about 5:42 pace, not too far off my goal. I would never have run that fast if I was solo so I was thankful that that guy showed up, it was a pleasure to out kick him in the end
With warm up and cool down, 6 for the day. This week wound up being a recovery week, which I needed. Now I'm ready to start doing some fast stuff again!!
Total for the week: 38
for the year: 616
