Race Report... and then some

Freihofer's 

Friday, May 31st, 11:00 p.m. I finally entered my house in Scotia, NY.  I left my apartment in Colorado around 6:30 a.m. that day to go into work for an hour before driving to the airport.  Once I was settled in at DIA, I found out that the plane was delayed an hour.  Ug.  Then the 3 hour 45 minute flight turned into 4 and 1/2 hours thanks to some harsh storms in the midwest.  Finally, I arrived at LGA airport.  When my mother picked me up at the airport we started our journey to upstate NY... but not so fast.  Good old NYC traffic.  We eventually made it out of the city and just when we thought it was smooth sailing we hit another traffic jam outside of Nyack. I begged my mother to stop so we could eat, it was already past 7:00.  After we ate dinner (which wasn't so great), we got back in the car and finished our drive home.  As soon as I got home I went to bed, 6:45 was going to come quickly, especially for a girl on Mountain Time.  

Saturday, June 1st-  That morning was hot, even at 7:25 a.m. when I left my house to meet a couple friends to carpool to the race with.  When I got there, I met my running buddy, Crystal, to go for a warmup.  Eventually it was time to head to the start line.  I stood in front of the corral with Crystal, Kristina, Renee, Gretchen and Jodie.  I passed around my water bottle as it is already 85 degrees with around 80% humidity.  It was brutal.   When the gun went off I went out where I thought I should be given recent race performances this year.  The first kilometer felt easy, then something happened.  I am not sure what.  My legs didn't hurt. I wasn't breathing heavy, I was just tired, hot, and didn't have the desire to race.  I finished a very disappointing 46th place in a time of 19:28.  I couldn't really explain what happened, but I wasn't overly upset either.  I was happy that my legs didn't hurt, I didn't feel like I died or went out too fast, I just felt tired and like I didn't want to run.  

The next morning I met Kristina, Meghan and Emily for a run in Amsterdam.  We started around 7:30 a.m. to beat the heat as Sunday was predicted to be in the 90's as well.  We started off slow around an 8:30 pace.  Shortly after we were clipping miles off around 7:15-7:20 pace.  After 12 miles we averaged 7:30's and we were relieved to be done as it was already 80 degrees and ridiculously humid. 

Central Park, NYC

June 6th- my Birthday!  I had a conference in NYC on Friday so I went down on Thursday to meet some friends for dinner that evening.  I planned my trip accordingly so when I arrived in the city I would have enough time to go for a run in Central Park.  The Oakley Mini 10k was going on that Saturday, thus I knew some of the elite would be around and naturally I wanted to go look for them!  As I entered Central Park, running north, a girl passed me running south that looked like Des Daliva.  I turned around and dropped to a 6:30 pace on my "easy" run to catch the girl.  Well I finally did and when I turned to acknowledge her she kept looking straight forward, completely focused.  I debated whether or not to ask if she was Des, then it started to seem awkward as I stared at her waiting for her to turn her head, so I kept running past her.  I am pretty sure that girl decked out in Brooks apparel was her.

OK 5k- Kinderhook, NY

Saturday, June 8th- my redemption day!  I warmed up with Crystal and Kristina on the course.  My legs didn't feel particularly good and although the temperature was a vast improvement from the weekend prior, it was still humid.  The race started and I went out behind Emily and Kristina.  As we passed through the first mile I thought the man reading splits at the mile marker was yelling 5:52, 5:53, 5:54, 5:55.  I kept plugging along.  At the mile 2 mark I was convinced he yelled out 11:58, which meant I was not on pace to run a PR.  It wasn't until mile 3 when I actually looked at my watch and read 17:38.  With just 0.1 of a mile left I knew I was going to PR.  I crossed the finish line in 18:15, a 14 second PR for third place.  I was so happy!  Apparently I was hearing the mile splits incorrectly or something, my splits on my garmin read 5:45, 5:57, 5:58.

Photo Shoot!

Sunday, June 9th- I came home and helped get some shots for Injinji in Poudre Canyon and Lions Park.  It was a lot of fun and Matt took some amazing shots!