First race of 08......

OK, running a race and running in a race are two very different things. Saturday was Nookachamps up in Mount Vernon, a really cool no frills race. We got a change to see our good friend Earl - “Hey Earl” AK, Shell and Lil’K ran the 5k: AK placing 4th in her age group and Lil’K placing 2nd in her age group! Way to go!!! TK ran the half marathon in 1:29:52 and I ran the 10k in 44:48. The weather held out great for us and just got a little windy at the end of the half marathon. Lots of birds over head and cows along the course.
Always good to see cows.....

Now about the running “a” race and running “in” a race. Saturday I should have been running in a race and not running a race. I was suppose to use Saturday as more of a tune up and run it some what easy. Instead, I ran too fast with the pack the first two miles, didn’t adjust for the upcoming hills and faded fast with a half mile to go. I knew this might happen about 5 minutes into the race, but didn’t go with my first thought of slowing down. This is something that, besides this last Saturday, I think I’ve really improved on. Especially for the tri’s, pacing has been the overall focus of every workout and race start.

Saturday was an important lesson in that I know the things that I didn’t do that could of made for a really fun race.
1. Know what your running for: Fun/Tune up/PR
2. Know your pace time that you should be running at.
This is where I did the most damage in the race, for the time I wanted I just needed to run at a 6:58 pace. In training runs of 7 and 8 miles I’ve averaged 7:10, so 6:58 should have been pretty easy for 6.2 miles. However, my first mile was around 6:38 and second about 6:42, much too fast for a 10K for myself. I finished at 7:12 ave.
3. Pack all your race gear and check it off the list. I forgot my Gu packet. A little thing about the size of a ketchup packet that holds about 100 calories that you take before and/or during a race for a little shot of energy.

All in all it could have been worse, but it was a great reminder of how import game plans are for all races. And that I can’t just show up at a race and run at my limit and be happy with the out come. If I’d of paid attention in the early part of the race on Saturday I never would have had to run at my limit for almost half the race and could of saved it for the last half mile. And most likely would have had a better time, on the course and on the time clock.

Last weeks numbers…

Six workouts in 7 days
3 Runs – 13.53 miles / 1.73Hrs
1 Swim - .62 miles / 30 Min
2 Other – 1.08 hours: core workouts

Down from last week, but work really got in the way last week a lot. Should be better about leaving work at work this week. Also, I’ll try to post some photos from Nookachamps tonight and a quick shout out to Spangler, ‘ Hey girl, AK and I were running out at Discovery yesterday and waved over to you. Hopefully you were out on your bike somewhere……..