Racing Through Training

Sunday, August 4th, 2013 
Evergreen Town Race

 First road 10k in how long? I anticipated running somewhere between 37:50-38:30, and as the race drew closer the more nervous I became about my performance. I wasn't tapering for this race, I was doing a couple solid workouts that week. Also, the race started at 7500 feet. Yes, it is downhill, which totally helps, but I was still nervous considering I was receiving another 2 iron infusions that week. My ferritin, iron, and % binding all dropped.  In addition to the iron issues I feel I cannot perform at altitude the same as other runners who have lived here for years... heck my most recent H&H represented something like 12.7 & 38, which is only slightly higher than it was at sea level. Thus, when I was on the starting line I just hoped I would finish without dying. And then the gun went off. I went out in 5:56 pace and started to question what side of the road I should be running on. The course is pretty curvy and it was difficult to not get involved in too much weaving from side to side that would add unnecessary distance to the race. I went through the 5k in 18:45ish... and then for some reason felt the need to relax... like a lot. My mile dropped to 6:22 during mile 4. Luckily I realized I had a lot left in my legs and closed the last 2 miles around 6:06 pace. The biggest disappointment was my watch, which went off relatively close to each mile marker, until the last one... I then thought maybe they just skipped the mile 6 marker. I was certain I would be close to 37:50...until I then saw the mile 6 marker.. really? At the finish line my watch read 38:13 for 6.31 miles. I was bummed. If I had known my watch would be off would I pushed more at the end? The other downside of this race was the annoying runner (sorry, but it was!) that decided he would pace off of me/ then try to pace me. He literally ran on my heals... look at the race photos for evidence, then would jump off in front of me and stop!!! Then come back at me full sprint, telling me "come on lets go". Really??? Talk about messing up my stride, I purposely tried to slow down for a few strides to let him pass, but he wouldn't, he just tucked inside of me before jumping off to the side again to stop before starting a full out sprint again. I eventually told him to just go ahead around mile 5.7, but he didn't feel the need until the last 0.1. I was super annoyed. Anyway, I finished 7th overall and 3rd in my age group, talk about some good competition! A 4+ mile cool-down and then headed home.

August 10th, 2013 Georgetown to Idaho Springs 

That week I kept the miles up. From Sunday, August 4th to Saturday, August 10th, I ran 70 miles which included the 10k race along with a 13.1 mile race, a day off and a solid workout on Wednesday. I went into the half marathon Saturday thinking the same thing at the starting line, please let me get through this. The half was a lot harder. It started at 8500 feet and the first 2.5 miles were dead flat. Then as we started the descent, we had rolling hills during every mile for the next several miles. I wanted to pull out around mile 5 and didn't know how I was going to finish. Luckily miles 6 & 7 were slightly better and then we got onto a dirt trail for the next mile. I was able to basically run the first and second half evenly, which is huge for me (splits below). I finished 3rd overall in a time of 1:24:24. Not my best half, but considering the elevation and training with no taper, I am quite happy. There were still 530 feet of elevation gain at that altitude I had to suffer through despite the net downhill! I added on another 3.7 miles after the race for a total of 19 for the day.

Split	Time	Distance	Avg Pace
1	6:24.0	--	--
2	6:36.0	0.00	--
3	6:26.6	0.00	0
4	6:21.9	0.00	0
5	6:40.5	0.00	0
6	6:21.3	0.00	0
7	6:21.1	0.00	0
8	6:18.2	0.00	0
9	6:24.2	0.00	0
10	6:22.1	0.00	0
11	6:22.5	0.00	0
12	6:27.9	0.00	0
13.1	7:18.3	0.00	0
Summary	1:24:24.5	0.00