Bi-polar Running

As yesterday's LR concluded and Missy and I spent some time stretching out, I commented to her that the weekend's events felt like bi-polar racing. Running in my first ever mile race on Saturday and then getting in a 21 miler on Sunday could not be further from one another on the spectrum of running. Mindset is different, pacing is different, fueling is different, and pace is most certainly different. Here's how it all worked out...

As noted previously I had a week full of extremely easy running. And while the soreness in my legs quickly worked itself out, by Friday it also felt like all the zip in my legs had exited as well. Eeeks! Not the warm, fuzzy feeling you'd hope to have on the eve of a mile race. Nevertheless, I met up with Missy on Saturday morning prior to our heats and ran some warm-up miles + a couple qtr mile sprints to get the juices flowing. Uh yeah, those qtr miles just about convinced both of us NOT to run the mile. Good gawd. Against better judgement we did forge on. :-) Missy was first with the youngin' heat and she looked more than ready! And while I was still nervous and anxious as all hell, I took a lot of comfort in seeing Missy return to the start line after her mile, still intact having survived her heat. She ROCKED it, btw. Anywho, cannon goes off and so do all of the 30-39 yr old women in my heat. The course is a straight shot down Fifth Avenue from 80th St. to 60th St. Missy had told me there's a crest at about 1/2 mile and after that it's down hill. From 3/4 mile on you can see the finish line. So I'm moving and trying to get it all under control - systems are good. Legs have lost their feeling of concrete pegs and I'm not dying. I crest at 1/2 mile and am on 6:0_ (something) avg pace - it was a quick glance and all I saw was 6 and : and a 0 but not the last digit. So I lost some speed in the second half but seeing that finish line in the distance, like a mirage kept me moving. Crossed in 6:25 and legs felt super! In fact they felt fine the remainder of the day and into the next. Just had some burning in my upper chest and a bit of cough for the couple hours post-run. So the mile was a surreal but successful endeavour. I have no doubt I could improve vastly in such a running distance but really, why run one mile when you can run 20+ miles.

And so we move into my other running personality, center stage, the next day.

Again Missy and I had a date to meet up prior to the ING 18 mile tune-up race. It was gonna be a wet one, likely a very wet one - rain started the night before and continued in a steady fall. I ran to our meeting spot, met her and continued to the race's start. That ended up being 3 miles on the nose. The race is 3 counter clockwise laps around the big loop in CP. Nothing too exciting or unknown about this course. In fact I could write a crazy description of each and every up, down, and turn on the big loop especially in this direction. Luckily we had each other. Missy and I both decided we'd run it pretty easy and if we were feeling good, would pick it up in the final miles. And so we were off. The miles clicked away and the rain continued to fall. I ended up taking two gels around 7 and 13-14 and felt good. Real good. Legs were strong and full of pep & my breathing was never labored. I'd say we maintained a 9:10-9:15 pace for most of the miles and on the last 2+ we climbed Cat Hill one last time and Missy started it up. She was encouraging the whole time, speaking of Boston and not giving up - it was awesome! Time to dig in! She pulled ahead on that hill and a bit more after the ascent but she was always in sight. We had less than two miles to go and both continued to pour it on. I need to recheck my Garmin but I believe the last two miles were 8:10 or less and a sub 8:00 and the handful prior to that were sub-9:00s. So a total of 21 miles in approx. 3:13 (9:11/mi).

What a way to polish off a fun weekend of running and to exercise my Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde!