The plan for this half was to just run nice and easy, getting used to race conditions, and have a nice plan for my pre-race routine. Now, I'm a huge Seinfeld fan, and I'm sure that some of you may remember when Elaine had a world-class marathoner stay with her before the NY Marathon. If you can recall, this particular marathoner slept through his Olympic run because of the volume on his alarm clock. Later in the episode he again almost sleeps through the alarm because Kramer fell asleep in his hottub (that ran out of heat) and his internal alarm clock didn't work. ANYWAY, on this particular day, I thought I had set my alarm for an hour earlier than I actually did. Luckily I woke up about 15 minutes before I was supposed to pick Amy up, so I didn't get to do any of my 'pre-race' routine, like find a healthy banana that wasn't as black as the one in my fridge.
So here I was, breakfast cut short, running around like a chicken with it's head cut off, and a little late to pick Amy up. Luckily we had planned to get there rather early, so we had plenty of time to park and pick up our shirts. FYI, congrats to the TN State Park Running coordinators for putting together great shirts. For 18 bucks, you get to run and get a decent Tech-T. They kinda resemble the home jerseys of the female basketball team of the east tennessee variety, but good other than that.
I had hoped to finish the race in a comfortable 8:00-8:10 pace. I didn't want to push it or get injured because I have another chance to PR on a flatter course in a month. Over 300 runners gathered at the starting line on a fairly nice day (partly cloudy, wind at about 10 mph). The start was a little cozy as we all darted out, the first mile was my slowest as I ran an 8:25. I wasn't unhappy because my plan was to start off slow and work off some time as I went. Now for the next 1.5 miles, we ran on the side of a rather busy road. This left about 10 feet of road to work with. I had started a little back in the pack with respect to my predicted finish time, so I had to bob and weave around some runners at this point. Probably not the safest thing to do. After mile 2 I look at my watch and see I ran it at 7:22...uh, wow, a little fast. It was a downhill section, but jeez. I felt good though, so I'd take another mile and do a systems check. Next mile: 7:45. Alright, it seems like I can't go as slow as I want (this happens during training runs to), so I guess since I feel good and don't think I'm pushing it, I'll keep this pace.
So, that was the plan. It worked out well as I posted splits from 7:30-7:50 the rest of the way. I did run into a little trouble a bit after mile 7 when a runner 10 yards ahead of me decided he needed to 'blow off a little air' if you catch my drift. I yelled up to him 'Whattya doing, stepping on a duck?' He said something I couldn't hear, but I thought he could have given me a warning or something.
So, all in all, a good race. Finished in 1:40.40 with no injuries and feeling great. Took Sunday off with a rather painful headache, and ran 9 today. Today's nine miles were probably the best 9 I've ran all season. 8:33 splits. I need to learn how to run more slowly. Felt great.
Have a great week!!!!
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