The 408K Race Report

Here we go... Warning to my readers out there, this is going to be a breakdown of the race and may be quite boring if you're not into the details. I will have more than just a break down of the race in here, but I thought I should issue that disclaimer.


Another view of the data...

So, here we go.

The positives:

• I ran over 50% of the course by time (which means it was probably well over 50% of the distance, but I haven't figure out how to slice and dice the data in training peaks or garmin to pull that data out - I may write a script to extract it from the XML directly).
• Fueling during the race was much better.
• The minor hills didn't bother me.
• The ankle did fine.
• I didn't finish dead last in either my age group or overall. :-)
• Depending on how much I trust the Hot Chocolate run data where I lost the GPS because I was in the 99 tunnel, I may have had my fastest mile.

The negatives:

• Pacing, pacing, pacing. Yeesh. Coach even gave me the virtual head slap before the race to go slow. And here I thought I was going slow bobbing and weaving through the crowds at the start. They had three corrals and I was in corral C. The cool people are always at the back, right? My goal was to run around a 1:00:00 - 1:05:00. I finished at 1:06:36. Not far off, but if I had done a better job of pacing I would have ended in my goal range. I did have to stop and tie my shoe at mile 1, so let's just say I lost 30 seconds there.
• I need to work on pre-race jitters - I slept horribly the night before. That'll come with experience, I'm sure.

The "it just is" list:

• Weather! Interesting race - started off at 42 degrees and was nearly 60 by the end - that mucked with things a bit. I did notice as the temperature climbed, my pace slowed. That is by far the warmest I've run in yet.
• Water stations are amusing - I think I got more on me than in me.

Ok, so after all of that - how did I feel about the race? I think I'm OK with it. I'm trying not to look at this result too cynically or too hard because I do know that things are good and again, if I look at where I was 8 months ago, it was a much different (and not so good) world. I'm still struggling with calling myself a runner. I know that taking a walk break during a run is somewhat accepted. There are even major marathon training plans that call for it, but I still have this image in my mind of what running should be and I'm not there yet. Mentally, I know it's the right thing to do. Emotionally, not so much.

I am proud of the fact that this is the longest race distance I have done yet. I had only ever done one 5K race and one sprint triathlon before I started up this training and now I've gone beyond that in a short amount of time. I've done 4 5K races, 1 8K race, and I've got a 12K race that is only 7 weeks away. I'm also poking around looking for a 10K race before that.