Five Fast Femme-Fatale Freaks

Last year started the tradition for me of running the Akron Marathon relay. Despite a poor showing on my part my team last year snagged 1st mixed and we were hooked. This year we decided to round up a ladies team. We had 4 but we needed a fifth and by Wednesday we were getting desperate. Luckily we snagged a local superstar last minute to finish out as our fifth and she was up for higher mileage so she took the long leg! Always nice when your speedster wants to go long!

Once again I was sick for the race this year, but the weather was much better and my sickness was contained to a slight cough making running much more feasible. We rallied at T's place again and this year JP and I watched the start and the 5k to cheer before heading to the buses. I had tons of friends to cheer and I had fun watching the beginning of their day. T and MT actually got to start the race with Bill Rodgers! That must have been exciting.

My leg went much better this year. I was waiting in my assigned corral when Solar came blazing in and I managed to actually pass some female marathoners and not get passed by any ladies doing the relay or full this time. It's the small victories right? I felt pretty good the whole way but the hills were just too tough to do anything spectacular out there. I settled for sub 7 pace and after scoping out the results and seeing not too many men ran that leg faster than me I feel better about it. (I should clarify, despite knowing that leg was damn tough I still kept my hopes up I could come close to sub 20 because I have been running hills pretty well lately, you'll never know if you don't go for it, so once I ran the 7:08 I knew that wasn't going to happen and I wanted my overall pace to be sub 7, I really wanted to be sub 21 but that last stretch of Sand Run really brought my pace down)

Wacko splits for those that enjoy them:
25k to mile 16: 3:06 (6:39/mile pace)
16 to 17: 6:37
17 to 18: 7:08
18 to 30k: 4:28 (6:58/mile pace)
Handoffs: 3 seconds
Official Time: 21:23

After finishing I wandered backwards through the course cheering on my friends. Decided to get in a cool down and spotted AP. I had considered running the last 7.6 of the marathon with the 3:50 group as practice for San Fran but decided to return his NERC 5K pacing favor and ran with him until the end. He had some rough patches and I had my first experience watching someone lose their juice, literally. But we had fun (well I had fun) finishing out the race together.

Once I made my way through the crowd I quickly grabbed a food bag and my three beers, then it was party time. Found my girls and we managed to snag second in the female relay. We got some sweet trophies which I turned into my beer cozy. Unfortunately the race ran out of brews before I had my fill of fun and before many of the marathoners were finished. Hopefully they will plan accordingly next year. After that T, Solar, and I hit up the Indian buffet and it was off to get cleaned up and head to a wedding shower then off to pick up the rents from the airport. It was a long day!


All the girls look cleaned up and I was still stuck in my sweaty running clothes, gross!

I took a few days off to fix this cold and now I am back up and running. Last long run before San Fransisco is this Saturday. I'm looking forward to an easy 20 with my parents keeping me company on their bikes on my old home turf. North Country Trail recap is still on its way!