Addicted to Exercise

What a fun day at the races! I had promised Gilbert earlier in the week that I would stick to somewhere around an 8-minute pace for this run, and that meant I was right in the ballpark of what Jay needed to do. So I took the opportunity to run the race with him. My game plan was to watch my GPS and hover just under 8 minutes a mile. Basically that meant just nudging the pace up a little bit any time I saw it drift over and easing back any time I noticed myself start to pull ahead.

I arrived at Motive a little more than an hour before the start and wandered around looking for the Gazelles tent. I found it, and soon the whole crew had arrived for the warm-up. We did a two-mile warm-up (out and back along the last mile of the course), and then I filled the remaining time with drills and hydration adjustments. I found Jay, and we made our way to the start. I think we were lined up about halfway back or so, but it’s hard to tell. We were in a thick bunch of people. They had some delays getting things going, but after standing around a bit we did get underway.

The first mile was “interesting” for me. I’m used to lining up closer to the front, and even up there you have a few people to dodge at a big race, but here it was actually pretty challenging. There was a little sidestepping involved, but we made it through without incident.

Following my tradition for this event, I missed the first mile marker, but we knew where it was. I know the first mile was a little slow, and the second one was a little fast. (That second mile is all downhill.) We gave a little back on the third mile, and after that we were pretty steady. I just stuck to the plan, making sure I wasn’t pulling ahead but pushing gently if the pace started creeping over 8. I got some water down the wrong pipe at the first water stop, and that was my reminder why I grab a little at each one. (There’s no pressure to try to gulp it all down then!)

After the mile 4 marker, the roller coaster section started. On the steep downhill, the important thing is to be smooth and protect your legs, so we eased on down and got to the timing mat for the climbing contest. I always figure climbing the big hill is a very personal thing, so it was all right if we split up a bit and regrouped at the level sections. We stayed pretty close together, and it was fun to watch several people pull off to the side during the climbs.

Somewhere in that section some kid was running really fast down a steep hill, and I recall overhearing someone saying that’ll hurt in a little while. Heh. I just remember thinking on part of the climb how much easier it was than the Wilke repeats we do in training (and we only had to do it the one time).

There is a little neighborhood section in the middle couple miles of the course, and I always think that’s one of the hardest parts. We just wind through there, and it’s hard to tell where we are. I was afraid Jay was falling back there, but he said he was all right and we should just do a couple more miles just like that before picking things up. (I found out later he had just slowed down to take in more water at the water stop there.)

Once we hit the mile 8 marker I knew we were mostly home free. It didn’t seem long until we reached 183 and the mile 9 marker. There were a bunch of Gazelles there cheering. I started pushing a little more in there since we were getting close to the end. When we made the turn into the final neighborhood at the mile 10 marker, I thought about how hard this section usually is. Since I was taking it a bit easier today, it wasn’t so bad for me. Still, I knew this was where I was going to have to work the hardest. I started to get a little meaner since I knew Jay had to really push through there. I felt like he was falling off a little bit, but in retrospect I was just pushing us a little harder! I stuck to the same strategy, though. I pushed, but I made sure he was keeping up.

Finally we reached that last mile where we had just been a couple hours earlier, and it was just as all uphill as it was then. We were passing people, though, so that felt good. I didn’t think Jay looked distressed enough, so I started yelling more. When we hit the last stretch, I broke out into a sprint and egged him on, and we finished with a really strong kick.

We ended up with 1:42:19, which was about 15 minutes slower than I did my half this summer, but it was a huge PR for Jay (congrats!), so I did my job. I had a blast out there, so I think I’ll do something like that again. We did a cool-down run on the same two miles where we did the warm-up, and it was fun to watch all the people still finishing.

That was a lot of running this weekend (and the most I’ve done in weeks). My hamstrings are pretty tight now, so I’ve been stretching them tonight. I had 20 miles for the whole weekend, which is a lot when I haven’t even officially committed to training for my next marathon yet!

I’m just happy every time I get to go outside and run. While we were hanging out afterwards Lisa (who had been out there cheering) said something about how I looked so happy and relaxed out there and she wished she could feel so good running that fast! I thought that kind of put things in a nice perspective. I am really thankful that I can go out and do that.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 12th, 2006 at 9:53 pm and is filed under Race Reports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.