Keep it fun.

Fast shoes and 6x used racing bib!

It's hard training through winter. This winter has been pretty mild overall but still that dark and wet and cold gets to me. I like to keep a spring race in focus but it's important to keep running fun during winter.  Usually that means I try to get out to trails but this year, I chose to run in the 2 mile Super Jock and Jill/New Balance Winter Grand Prix series.

fun?  Really?

Oh yes. It's been super fun!  Racing 2 miles is over before you know it and you recover quickly. I'd run a 3-4 miles before and 1-2 after and get a decent amount of miles in. I kept a midweek run of 8-10 miles a couple times a week to maintain mileage. I did no other speedwork besides the race fearing injury if I did.  Sometimes those mid-week runs were pretty dang slow and it didn't matter.

My goals for the series were to work on taking some chances in a race, going out hard and not being afraid of it and maintaining focus.  It took a couple races to get the hang of this and to understand how these races went. With a lot of fast kids, the field went out fast but those around me would really slow in the middle. if i were using just passing people as a guide, I'd slow too much.

The last race of the series was this weekend.  So that made three races in a row for the past three weekends. Fortunately this past week was a rest week and I cut my miles, took a couple days off from running and just generally lollygagged about.  Yeah right.

The trick with this race is that it is the chase race.  Those who are expected to be slower overall start first and those expected to be fastest start last. You chase those ahead of you and it is does make for an odd race.

I did my usual 3-4 mile warm up with some drills and strides.  We had to get to the start a bit earlier to line up according to our seed time.  This was based on previous road race finish times.  I've only been getting faster and faster. And as a result had moved up from 4th to 2nd in my age group.  With this race, i had a chance to win my age group.  I lined up and the other women in my age group were all seeded to start about 10 seconds ahead of me.

Turns out, they all knew each other and were really curious about me as I'd gotten so much faster.  It was really fun to meet them all and also explain the marathon I'd run between the first and second races of this series.  "Ohhhhh," yes, they all understood that.  In fact they understood it so well that we all exchanged email addresses.  Hey! Possible running partners!

And as the clock ticked down to my assigned start time, I went! And started a race all by myself with people ahead and behind.  It was very strange. I knew I was aiming for between 6:50-6:55 pace overall but I also didn't want to pass the women ahead of me too early. Since I didn't start with the crowd, it took me a bit longer to get up to speed. It was windy that morning and i used the tail wind for the first half mile and got a bit faster than goal pace.  I took the turn and headed into the head wind and did start passing the first people who had started ahead of me.

In a typical race, if it were windy, I'd try to tuck in behind someone to block the wind.  With this race, no way! The goal was to pass anyone ahead.  First mile 6:55. This was a little slow but felt right. And here I felt i could finally start to pass the women who'd started ahead of me.  It took a bit to work towards them. And just like I thought, passing one gal spurned her on to passing me back.  We battled back and forth for half a mile.  We hit much more traffic of those ahead and I took the shortest route over the gravelly area of road.  Trail running pays off again.  Everyone was avoiding that area because it is a bit tougher to run on.

We made the final turn and were still almost right next to each other.  This was it and finally i found some fast twitch muscles. Woohoo I finished ahead (a few seconds?), had run my own damn race and also PR'd again at the road distance.  13:45.

Yay! Eventually results were announced and I'd tied for first in my age group.  It was NOT the gal I'd battled with at the finish but another gal who'd finished behind me who tied.  I'd done my part though. I finished ahead of all of them, run my race and PRd. It can't get any better than that.

This has been a break through series for me. It propelled me to a breaking a long time 5k PR and got me very excited about what is to come this year.

FUN!  

This doesn't make me crazy anymore.

Another view of the Old Milk Truck on the trail.

We got back from our Albuquerque trip late in the week.  I was able to take an extra day off from work and go do a bit more exploring for a new trail/road loop that Coach Lesley and I had figured out some weeks ago.  The Old Milk Truck was just as startling in place this time as last time.  What is it with abandoned cars along trails?  We got off onto another trail by accident and found one car which looked like it had flipped.  I was not too interested in exploring that one as it seemed possible that bodies could be in it.  Yikes. 

It was pretty neat to see that some substantial work had been done on the trail since we'd been there last.  After just a few miles on easy trails, we got out onto a rolling road and enjoyed trotting along.  I declined adding on more miles as I had wanted to rest my legs for the upcoming Love 'Em or Leave 'Em 5k.  That turned out to be a moot point. 

I went to work for one day and spent hours on my feet running around trying to cram one week of work into a few hours.  This honestly isn't a big deal generally as this can happen quite frequently with some of the more physical aspects of my job.  Friday though, I was super tired after this.  Really?  After almost of week of lying about napping and knitting with fun, easy (and they were easy - legs were feeling great) runs, one day of work leaves me practically napping at lunch time?  Hmm. 

Yep, I knew signing up for this race that it was going to be iffy with timing of my cycle but that's just the way it goes sometimes. I'd had great running the previous couple weeks and higher mileage.  I thought it possible that legs would be tired going into this which would be just fine but i'd had a great short speed workout just to get the legs moving while we were in Albuquerque.  I felt great then! Oh well, just go out there and do the best you can on race day.

I woke with even more symptoms and warmed up feeling very blah.  I did some strides which didn't feel very strideful and made my way towards the race start.  At least I'd timed that perfectly.  I was about 10 minutes before the start of the race.  I peeled off warm up layers, draped them over a fence and wandered into the corrals amusing myself by watching everyone start to really bop around when this song came on over the loud speakers.  We were off at the airhorn and pretty quickly i was across the timing mat. 

I was trying something different for pacing per my Coach's wishes.  I'd been having such good runs and faster than expected that she really wanted me to run this race NOT looking at pacing at my garmin watch. I'm game so i set my screen to my long trail running screen which gives elevation, overall time, time of day and distance.  Now i know i should be able to figure out pace per mile with this information but my brain does not do those sorts of calculations without pen and paper so this was safe.  I'd let it beep me what the mile laps were at least on the first one because I was curious. 

We start off and it's pretty crowded.  I just try and maintain a steady and strong pace without weaving.  It's honestly feeling hard and I'm not too happy about that because I know i'm slow.  Harumph.  We get onto the path along Green Lake and a guy pushing stroller pushes past all of us on the gravel.  I know i wasn't the only one a bit demoralized by this.  Ha!  The first mile clicks over at 7:30 and I know it's not my day.  the only thing to do is just keep engaged in this race and fight for it and I do.

I desperately wanted to walk as breathing felt hard and legs just didn't want to move any faster.  I usually listen to other people around me and gauge their breathing with mine.  Today, I'm working just as hard as everyone else.  I just want to hang on as we hit the top of the lake and into a strong feeling headwind.  Oh joy.  It's actually pretty good weather at mid-40s and maybe a quick shower every once in a while.  I opted for a running skirt and short-sleeves.  I dropped my gloves before the race but kept my headband as my ears always hurt with cold wind. 

I have my eye on a couple gals ahead of me.  One is in purple and one is in a blue/black vest.  Stay with them!  The purple gal slowly pulls away.  The gal in the vest is also hurting as at about 2.3 she pulls off to walk a bit.  I am SO tempted but stay with it battling the wind.  Finally we drop onto the little trail which will take us to the finish and i can see the clock is almost to 24.  I push and manage to finish just over 24 minutes.  Blargh.  Really I couldn't say that at any point during this race that I felt good and moving well or feeling strong so 24 minutes is pretty good. 

I knew I'd lost momentum into the wind but I didn't expect to slow quite so much.  However, I was afraid I'd start way too fast so 7:30 was good.  Miles 2 and 3 were 7:40 and then 8:05 (wince).  This kind of thing really did used to drive me crazy but I know if this race had been the week previous I'd have run really, really well.  It's just the way things operate for me.  I chalk this up to a good training run and a good mental strength work out and move along. 

A race that was well timed and that I went into with tired legs was the 12ks of Christmas just two months ago.  I ran that hilly race which is three times as long at the same exact pace as this 5k (7:44).  Ha!  How ridiculous is that? I knew I'd run that race well and actually raced right on the edge pushing the whole time and was stunned and delighted with the results.  This 5k?  There is no doubt in my mind that as much as I like to pretend hormones can be ignored, they affect my ability to do certain things at certain times.  So, yep I'm disappointed that the timing of this race was off but not too unhappy with the solid mental workout.  If I could work it into my schedule I'd look for another 5k to jump into but there are other fun things ahead which might preclude that.  And I went out exploring some more trails today.  My legs were tired but a nice and easy trot on squishy, hilly trails was perfect recovery.  After three weeks at higher mileage, I am looking forward to the easy running week.