I'm pleased. I'm very very pleased.
Thanks to Bold, Vickie and FeLady for your advice on taper. I went in fresh and feel it really helped. The day before I carbo loaded by eating a bit more fruit than usual, having brown rice with lunch and made a really yummy spaghetti dish with whole wheat pasta, kale, mushrooms, garlic, onions and proscuitto for dinner. I had oatmeal and berries at 6:00 a.m. before the race and felt ready to go.
The race went as follows:
Mile Pace HR
1 11:11 150 - 160
2 9:27 170-175
3 9:29 175
4 9:18 180
5 8:19 185-190
Final Time: 47:45
The first mile was painfully slow because we made the mistake of registering as non-competative (won't do that again) and had to start in the back. There were a ton of people and getting around them all proved challenging. The good part about it was it made us feel very fast passing all those people. Though it was my goal to start out easy, I think I could have easily shaved at least a minute off of that first mile and still been on target.
There were a couple of long gradual hills that screwed around with my heart rate a bit, but I felt strong throughout. I'm not sure if the pace on my last mile shows I should have done previous miles a bit faster. I was definately going all out that last mile. About a half a mile into it, I had to back off just a touch because I knew there was no way I could hold it. When the finish line was in sight, I picked it up again and ran like there was no tomorrow until I reached it. The other bummer about running non-competative is that everyone stopped when they got to the finish - so there was a traffic jam and I had to stop about 10 feet from the actual finish. I stopped my watch there - so there might have been another five or ten seconds on that, but maybe not. The clog certainly slowed me down before I stopped my watch.
Did I give it everything? I'm not sure. When I stopped, my legs almost buckled beneath me for a second, but I recovered very quickly. As soon as we got to the hospitality area and had an energy drink, I felt great. After a Luna bar and a free beer (at 10:30 in the morning) I felt even better.
We had a nice Irish lunch at Helen Fitzgerald's, I got a great massage, took a nap then went out for dinner and dancing to celebrate our three year dating anniversary. It doesn't get any better than that.
3 comments:
outstanding! you raced a smart race, and followed your game plan of negative splitting by HR!!
well.done.
me 'n Roman had the same sorta thing happen in our first race last year in Moab, but the opposite. we didn't want to get caught too far back, and the start was all downhill. so, we decided we would sprint the first mile or so, to take advantage of the descent. we were almost in the front row!
so, being a newb, i say out loud to Roman 'dude, how do you know you are too close to the front!?!'... to which the man on the left of me said 'when you are standing behind a kenyan!'... and the woman to the right of me said 'when you are standing behind someone who looks like this!' (she leaned forward at the waist, pulling her left arm back, and raising her right arm forward in a sprinter's pose)... i think i snorted, and then the gun went off, and it was sheer madness to the point where i lost Roman!
so, i think you seeded yourself well all things considering... but, now that you've put down some big numbers, they're not gonna let you enter non-competitive anyway!
You did it! And you did far better than I did in my measely 5k. Good time too.
Sounds like the perfect day! Great time at your race BTW!
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