Tobacco Road HM Race Recap + Week in Review

Goal #1:  1st or 2nd place for prize $$
Goal #2:  Negative Split

Actual:
2 miles warmup
1:17:55, 2nd place, Huge Positive Split (38:19/39:36)
3 miles cool down for 18 miles total
70 miles on the week
1 workout

I got my butt kicked today.  It’s definitely not what I wanted, but I still got $600.  My race came be summed up in three words: I wimped out.  I’m not being hard on myself, I’m just being honest.

Tomorrow I’ll run on my tired legs and the half will already be behind me, and I’ll be thinking of the big PR that I hope to get at the Grandma’s Half in like 15+ weeks.  So, I am okay with it.  It was one of those races that I just didn’t prepare for mentally whatsoever.  I was hoping I could come in and race it as somewhat of a tempo and squeak in a PR and a win.  Well, neither of those things happened, and I learned my lesson:  I need to prepare mentally for all races, not just the ones I deem really important.

Basically, I went out in my marathon pace - 607 - for the first mile and felt great.  Then I picked it up to tuck in behind a group of guys that were running around 5:50 -- perfect!  Then mile 4 happened, where I blindly followed the guys and dropped a 531.  While I wish that I could say that 5:40 is my goal half marathon pace, I knew that I wasn’t ready for that kind of pacing today.  So I had just split faster than my overall 10k pace a couple weekends ago.  I relaxed, and let the boys go, and ran another 5:42 in no mans land.  Respectable.

By the halfway point turnaround, I arrogantly thought I had a nice cushion over the second place girl.  I was wrong. Kimberlie Meeker (hopefully my new training partner when I move) was merely 15-20 meters back...if I was lucky!  So, I told myself that all I had to do was maintain 5:50s and that I could probably hold her off.  By mile 9, she had made her way to me because I ran 6:01, and by mile 10, when she passed me, you can tell exactly where I mentally fell apart and stopped caring and started rationalized and doing all the things I tell myself never to do.  I ran a 6:19 split for mile 10.  It’s basically where she got 19 seconds on me that were maintained through the finish, because after that I tried my damnedest to get the pace back down to below 6:00.  Eventually I did, but the damage was already done...Kimberlie finished in 1:17:35 and I followed 20 seconds later.

I definitely wasn’t thrilled with my race execution - with almost a 1:17 positive split for the second half of the race, but I was only 5 seconds off of my half marathon PR.  I’ve really been enjoying the shorter distances, and I didn’t enjoy this one too much at all.  This race just affirms that the half marathon is a really tough distance for me to wrap my mind around but also that a marathon is not something I want to do anytime soon.  I really want to focus April and May on doing what I need to do to run a 1:15:xx half marathon, because I know it’s in my wheel house, I just haven’t put all the pieces of the puzzle together yet.

Other news from the race - Kimberlie got a PR and is trying to qualify for the Olympic Trials.  I reassured her that, given her recent performance, she should definitely be able to do that.  Michelle got third and brought home both $450 and a PR.  Aaron pulled in some masters cash, so all of the Charlotte people left richer, which is always fun!

Also, Garrett and I checked out basically all the neighborhoods in Durham and tried to narrow down our house rental search to just a couple of hoods.  We are thinking now Hope Valley or downtown, but it’s looking like suburbia is calling our name because of the safety and accessibility to running trails.