Today started off with a bit of rain and the threat of thunder showers, and while I was fairly certain that the race would go on I was a little nervous about racing. I tend to avoid running during most acts of weather, even rain most of the time. Truly a wuss, because it isn't like I will melt after all.
The last training run I did that wasn't treadmill training (the treadmill has its place, but it doesn't really prep my ankles at least for the pounding of street running) was - ahem - April 5, when I ran nearly 10 miles along the race route. After that, almost nothing. The show picked up, I was weaving nearly every chance I could, and as it did last year my training was what suffered for it. This week I did two stints on the treadmill for about 30 minutes each to remind my body that it does know how to run, but I wasn't the most confident.
I got to the Seaport and set myself an optimistic pace goal of about 10:30 min/mile. I had my shuffle with me loaded with Podrunner mixes to keep me on a steady cadence. I'm really bad about pacing myself. I chatted and tried to stretch in the crowd, and then 8 a.m. came. We were off!
My first mile was a fairly pedestrian 11 minute mile. It always seems to take me a mile or two to get into my stride. The next three or four miles were about a 10 minute mile, which was fairly close to my training pace... when I was training. Whoops!
Around mile 7 I decided it was OK to walk. Bad idea! Even then I tried to keep the walking to a minimum. I wanted to run as fast as I did the first time, and walking the second half of the race was just like a death knell. I kept going, trying to run consistently on any flat surfaces and downhill slopes and walk jogging the rest of the time.
We got to the end and I just didn't have a lot left to push through. I just told myself that I couldn't walk across the finish line, because my legs aren't that done! And my steady run brought me across the timer at about 2:27:xx gun time. My net time (which I will get officially when they upload it) was about 2:24:xx or an 11:02 min/mile pace. Better than I've done before, so I'm pretty thrilled!
The race flaws: really high humidity as the rain gamely tried to evaporate as we were pounding over it, and my Nike+ did not want to record my race. Other than that, it was a blast!
