Another PR

Well so far this year has been a pretty good one running wise for me. Saturday night I added another PR race to the year.

A few years back I did the Winking Lizard Shot in the Dark 4 mile run as my first road race back after not running seriously for a few years during college and post college. That night I ran a 31:21 a 7:50 pace and was pretty pleased but knew I had a lot of work to get where I would like to be.

This past Saturday I was pretty confident I would PR I just wasn't sure by how much. My previous 4 mile PR was from this same race in 2005, 28:14 a 7:04 pace. As my new 5 mile pace is faster than that I assumed I could beat it.

Saturday was also the day I have been waiting what seems like an eternity for, it was the release of the 7th and final Harry Potter book. WooHoo. David had ordered it from Amazon for me so I woke up early and started into the yard work with anticipation of the book coming and having a bit of time to read before the race. Well before too long I had been digging in the yard for 4.5 hours and then done a half hour of mowing and pulling weeds etc. I cleaned up and ate lunch and the book finally arrived at 3 PM leaving me an hour to read before heading off to the race.

I weighed myself on the way out and realized all the yard work had left me dehydrated so I drank some water and hoped for the best.

My plan was to run even or negative splits. I had practiced the pace I wanted to run Tuesday on the track so I just kept repeating in my mind 6:50 pace, just like on the track.

I got in a short warm up that I thankfully started early. It was hot so I wasn't too worried about a big warm up. Good thing as I arrived back at the start where they were starting the 2 mile race and announced the 4 miler would start in 5 minutes as opposed to the 10 minutes I was supposed to have. I grabbed a water bottle and took a few sips then lined up towards the front. This race attracts a ton of people but you never know if any of them are going to be good until you get going.

We started and I fell into what I felt was 6:50 pace and kept repeating that it needed to feel like the track. The course had changed since I last ran it and we headed out over the Carnegie bridge. My breathing felt easy but I noticed the girls next to mine was labored. Apparently hills are coming along for me again. I crossed the first mile in 6:58. Considering the uphill I was happy with it. I just tried to hold that effort and assumed I would get back to 6:50 with the downhill and flat to follow.

During the next mile I got passed by one lady. I didn't feel like I was slowing down so I assumed she got a late start and was just faster than me so I let her go. I told myself this wasn't a race to race others in. I was striving for a consistent pace and didn't want to blow up. The second mile was 6:56. Not what I was hoping for but I knew if I could hold it I would PR.

We started to head back towards downtown and I got passed by two women in the 3rd mile who looked awfully close to my age. I knew I hadn't slowed much and that I wasn't about to start my kick with more than a mile to go. I let them go. As we started to come up the hill that is the Detroit Bridge I saw the 3 mile marker. This mile was slower than I would have liked at 7:04. I decided to push it a bit on the downhill. I knew there was less than a mile to go and I felt like I could pick up the pace. I conveniently forgot that Huron is slightly uphill but I pushed through it and managed to run down a few men but not any women. I didn't get passed at all during the last mile though and that felt good. As I rounded the finishing corner I watched EM finish and looked at the clock. I was happy to see I would break 28. A spectator to my right mentioned 8th woman. I was pretty happy about that and did my best to hammer in. Finishing the last mile in 6:47 for a 29 second PR.

I don't think I raced to my full potential here but I was very pleased that all my miles were pretty close and I even split the race. I'd like to see my 3rd mile closer to the others next time. I was probably a bit dehydrated and I am sure jumping up and down on a spade for 4.5 hours isn't the best pre race warm up.

I went out for a cool down and ran Solar Squirrels sister in. Then we went to get some grub and wait for the awards. And wait, and wait, and wait. As we waited we did our best to get the free t-shirt throwers on the roof to throw one in our direction. Well their aim isn't very good and I was hooting and hollering the best I could. Finally one came close and I batted my eyelashes to the gentleman that caught it and asked him if he really wanted that shirt. He replied that it was mine if I'd just be quiet. Sounded like a deal to me. I was able to trade down the 2XL to finally get a medium that might not be too baggy on me. Man it's amazing what people will do for a free t-shirt ;)

Eventually the awards started. I knew I had a good chance at an award if I was really 8th woman overall so we figured it was worth waiting around. Solar Squirrel had received an award last year but didn't stay for the awards and it was never sent to her so we wanted to make sure we stayed to actually get the awards if we won them. Well I ended up with third in my age group and the results online say 11th woman but we are pretty sure the two 50 year-olds that ran under 27 minutes were actually in the 2 mile. Not that I don't think they could run that pace, just that I didn't see any 50 year old women on the line at the start and their times from last year were closer to an hour. We waited around to hear most of the rest of the results and I picked up EMs award for her as I would see her the next morning. The awards were kind of neat. Little plaques with removable shot glasses. If I liked making mixed drinks or still drank tequila shots it would be up there as one of the great awards you can use, but as I don't it will probably just get stashed away in the cupboard.

I spent the rest of the night reading Harry Potter. The next morning I woke up and my hamstrings were not happy with me. I couldn't believe it, I had run a 50K the previous week and felt like a million bucks the next morning, how could a little 4 mile race do this to me. Then I realized it was probably the digging that had done it, not the 4 miler :)

Did an easy paced 12 miler with Solar Squirrel that morning then went shopping and then it was time to celebrate David's grandfathers 93rd birthday. We had a great time but my hamstrings were shot and playing with the kids definitely wore me out. Eventually I made my way home and stayed up into the wee hours of the morning to finish Harry Potter. It was great. I am glad I read the whole thing before anyone could spoil it for me!

My legs were still beat yesterday but they don't feel too bad this morning so I am hoping for a good track workout tonight.

Big congratulations to my buddy Jen on finishing her first Ironman this weekend! I'm so excited for her!