Cracking 2

It's been a few years since I was in a race that wasn't extremely humid or just insane terrain (I'm looking at you, Bataan Memorial Death March), but today proved to be a good day. Up until the time I woke up this morning it looked like rain could wash out this race, but fortunately the race organizers didn't trust the weathermen. The line of storms passed north, and by the first mile I knew it wasn't as humid as some other races I've been in recently. So I decided to keep a pace in the low 9's and then see where it could take me from the halfway point.

When I hit 6 miles, not quite halfway, I figured I could try and get this one in under two hours. Actually, around mile 4 I had a downhill that I gave in to gravity, but sure, we'll go with a few miles further on for the purposes of this story. I had tried to keep the 2:00 pace group within sight but lost them several times. I probably ran a little too fast through miles 7-10, but that's what saved me in the end.

At mile 11 I passed the ladies carrying the flag for the 2:00 group, talked with them for a few hundred yards, and then continued. At mile 12 I heard footsteps behind me and a guy came up beside me and asked how it was going. I said I think we'll make it, plus we beat the rain. I had a few calf twinges around mile 8 and then more frequently as we went on, but the worst was a new sidewalk right before the mile 13 marker. It wound from the path I usually run up the hill to the middle school track, and every step felt like my calves were painful lead weights. When it finally leveled out the pain subsided and I made the 3/4 of the way around the middle school track to the finish in 1:58:09. That was good for 69th place out of 272.

When I looked at the results 7 of the top 10 were female, and so was the overall winner. That is incredibly cool. I was just outside the top 25%, but at this age and not training to run fast I'll take it. In fact, I wish I'd done more speed work. I finished fourth in my age group by less than a minute from the person in front of me. Oh well, I ran my race and I'm happy. That's what it's all about.

Final Tune-Up

A short 3-miler this morning in Austin just to stretch out a little bit. The wind was chilly to start off  but warmed up a little by the end. The weather forecast for Saturday is rain but later in the morning, hopefully after I'm done. It's also supposed to pretty cool and breezy, so maybe this morning was a preview.

This site also says this is my 1,400th post on this blog. To my loyal reader (I assume that's probably just me since I don't think my Mom even knows this site exists) I say wow, that's a lot of running.

Short in Austin

In Austin this week for meetings, and I don't really like the location of the hotel we're staying at when it comes to running. I ran with the FVRP and we did 3.3 miles, which was good for me to stretch out here during race week. Part of the run was along a frontage road, but we stumbled into a campus with a nice wooded path. It wasn't horrible but I still prefer staying downtown where the running and scenery is better.

Cold and Windy

In a big reverse from Thursday, at least in the temperature department but not the wind, today was very cool with temperature in the 40s. I ran 7 miles in my last long run before next Saturday's race. The wind out of the north was ridiculous and almost snatched away my stocking cap a few times.

We're headed to the Old 97's County Fair in downtown Dallas this afternoon. I'm thinking I will probably take my heavy coat since it's bound to be downright cold once the sun goes down.

Warm and Windy

Temperature was in the upper 70s today, and very windy. I ran hills and felt good, and the wind helped keep me cooled to an appropriate level. I went at lunch, which was also nice since I didn't have to try and crowd 6 miles into my schedule. Looking forward to a shorter long run on Saturday (an oxymoron) and then a race in a little over a week. Here's hoping for good weather.

Closer to Spring

This morning was still cool, but sunny and starting to get that Springtime feel in the air. My morning meetings didn't start right away, which was a nice change. I thought about running hills, but with the temperature in the upper 40s it seemed like a good time to do some speed work. That's a relative term, btw. So I ran my regular route and at the 1.5, 2.5, 3.5, and 4.5 marks I ran a half-mile tempo. My GPS screwed up early on and marked me at a mile a couple hundred yards and a minute early, but by the time I got back to the neighborhood it marked me at 6 miles correctly. I had to rely on landmarks to get in the correct, or close to it, intervals. My times showed under 9 minutes/mile, which seems awfully optimistic. Regardless, it was good to run a little faster on the off chance that the 21st shows up with good weather where I can shoot for a faster time.

Not Spring Yet

Yesterday a big storm front came through, and then this morning the temperature was down near freezing. When I ran a little after lunch it was about 40 degrees and breezy. Normally it would be Spring, or close enough to it where we wouldn't have such a cold day. I wore long pants and t-shirt, as well as a stocking cap and mittens. I went 11 miles and the cold weather actually made it a good run. I doubt that the race in two weeks will be such good running weather.

Back Home

Yesterday was a nice day to run once I got back home. I ran 6 miles in the late afternoon, enjoying some German language lessons along the way. I wouldn't say it was a great run, but it was good enough on a day after I'd eaten too much Rudy's for dinner. You'd think by now I'd be smart enough to know I shouldn't eat that much on a night before a planned morning run. You'd be wrong.

Austin Storm

On Tuesday I drove up to a park in north Austin (where I was this week for work) and set out on a run. A bank of ominous clouds scuttled in from the north, and about a mile out I decided I should head back to the car in case the heavens cracked open. By the time I got back to my rental car and looked at the radar map on my phone it appeared the storm had passed by enough for me to be safe. I got no rain or lightning but plenty of wind, which was my undoing.

On the way back to the car the trough among the hills was filled with dust and pollen, mostly pollen, lifted into the air by the wind. I spent the next four miles wheezing and trying to breathe. Somehow I made it on a windy path through a neighborhood, apartment homes, and then back around by the parking lot; through a sports complex where people were playing softball, baseball, soccer, and skateboarding; and then I finally made it to my 6-mile mark.

It was a pretty severe allergy attack and several times I felt like stopping, but I decided long ago that if I waited until I felt great and let allergies have their way with me then I'd never run.