Wan't planning on running this race tll Tues night. Some friends who had registered couldn't run anymore so they called Jackie and I to see if we wanted their bibs..... shhhh!! Sorry if that offends anyone. We didn't place in their age groups so we feel okay about it. If we had run under our names we would have placed 2nd and 3rd.... I was the 11th woman out of 553 finishers and 76 finisher out of 1025. I am super excited about that.
This a down hill course so it is pretty fast. In comparing my effort to that of my previous PR on a flat course in Jan I feel my effort was about the same but I ran this 6 and half minutes faster. This course is similiar to the Hobblecreek half for any of you who have run that.
Jackie and I decided to stick together. I always go out too fast and she catches me in the end. We weren't sure how to run the course cause the majority of the downhill is in the first 6 miles. We decided to hold back on those miles and run comfortable.. it really paid off cause it left us with steam to keep up the pace the last half of the race.
Splits
1-5--7:02, 6:48, 7:02, 6:57, 7:02 uneventful. Started dumping water over head starting at 2nd water stop and continued through the rest of each water stop. It was warm today.
6- 6:47 Jackie was running two steps in front of me, had to talk myself into a positive place. I always feel defeated when I am not in front. Don't know why.
7-8 7:02, 6:58 We have been running close behind a guy the entire run. Everytime he sees us out of the corner of his eye he picks it up.
9-6:52 Jackie decides to pass the guy... I am cursing her because then the pace gets faster. I am too tired. She thought I had told her to pass him but I said "don't pass him yet". We lead him for only around a quarter mile. He passes us and so does another guy.
10- 6:59 Jackie points out a lady with an orange skirt up ahead and says we are chasing her. I am starting to feel defeated again and want to tell jackie to stop chasing people. I have to remind myself Jackie is tired too and to just hang onto her.
11-7:07 Pass a group of policemen at a blocked off intersection and get a burst of energy to show off. I am so dumb. We pass the guy we have been close to the entire race and he is not able to hang on.
12-7:18 started pulling away from Jackie somewhere in this mile. She has a side cramp. Start picking people off. Wish this mile was a bit faster.
13-6:59 You can see the finsih line almost this entire mile. It is a straight shot course. I keep reminding myself of all the speedwork I have done and tell myself just 7 more min. you can run 7 more min. I started counting down the minutes and then I started counting down the flags. There were 7 starting at about 4 10ths to go. Kept trying to catch and pass as many people as could. I passed around 6 or 7 people. One guy was not too happy.
last .1-- 38 sec.
Jackie finished just 20 seconds behind me.
I am really happy with this race. Of course I wonder could I have run it even faster with a proper taper and if the weather had been cooler? So silly! | 