These are the turkeys strolling up my driveway this morning.
"I'll take that for February". That's what my coach said about my performance. lol.. Not great, not bad, good enough. I agree. Considering the setbacks over the past couple of months, I'm satisfied. Pretty happy really.
I actually thought I had run this distance faster but after checking past race results it appears to my amazement that I have pr'd.
This race starts at 11:am which in my book is really nice. Sleep in, eat a good breakfast, lots of coffee, bowel movement.. :) When I did get to the registration area I found it to be quite chaotic. There were two extremely long lines and nobody seemed to know which line to get in. Finally, someone showed me the post-reg line. Lo and behold, the post-reg line was the shortest line. Weird eh? Usually, the post-reg is the longest line. Note to self, do not pre-reg for this race.
Speaking of lines, there were oddly no lines at all to use the ladies bathrooms despite the crowed venue. Seems the race directors decided to change all of the stalls to female use only leaving the males to use of the outdoor port-a-johns. Yup. I had to inform several as I waited for a buddy.
Our running club had a decent showing. Myself, Tracey, Michael, Maureen, Dave, Jeff Put, Patricia and Tom all ran. For some reason when I checked the 100+ photos from the race website, not one single person from our club got there mug on a photo.. Strange.. I wonder if the photographer is tired of me putting his photos of our runners on our website. (I asked for his permission a long time ago to do this)
The first two miles of this race were flat. I started out nice and confident and fast. 7:02, 6:52, yeah, I was feeling pretty good. Mile 3 was a little different. The name of the race is: Old Fashion 10 Miler and FLAT 5K. I really thought that the 10 mile was probably flat as well but I was incorrect. Miles 3 was a little hilly. Not a problem. On I pushed. Mile 4 was a nice relief, flat. 7:04. Cool. Then, mile 5, 6, and 7 were rolling hills. I slowed down. OK, fine, damn. I told myself that no matter how slow I feel that I am going, it always turns out to be a faster pace than I think it will be.
Towards the end of mile 7 I spotted, to my delight, a guy wearing his "Finisher of Ford Ironman" jersey. I sped up (rather easily) to talk shop with him. He was really nice and indulged me in all my questions. Seems he has a really memorable name to. Charlie Brown. He's on FB somewhere but I'll be damned if I can find him. After chatting it up for about two miles, which I must say flew by, I had to let Chuck know that I had to stop talking. After all, this is a race and I was slowing down from all of my blabbing.
I pushed on and managed to speed up by 5 seconds in mile 9. Mile 10 was my 2ND fastest mile. I finished in 1:12:34. 1st in my age group! They gave me a really nice plaque. It was a beautiful day to top it off.
After coming home I came down with a chest cold. In hind sight I think I might have done better if I wasn't coming down with that. However, as Jen said, I'll take that for February.
"I'll take that for February". That's what my coach said about my performance. lol.. Not great, not bad, good enough. I agree. Considering the setbacks over the past couple of months, I'm satisfied. Pretty happy really.
I actually thought I had run this distance faster but after checking past race results it appears to my amazement that I have pr'd.
This race starts at 11:am which in my book is really nice. Sleep in, eat a good breakfast, lots of coffee, bowel movement.. :) When I did get to the registration area I found it to be quite chaotic. There were two extremely long lines and nobody seemed to know which line to get in. Finally, someone showed me the post-reg line. Lo and behold, the post-reg line was the shortest line. Weird eh? Usually, the post-reg is the longest line. Note to self, do not pre-reg for this race.
Speaking of lines, there were oddly no lines at all to use the ladies bathrooms despite the crowed venue. Seems the race directors decided to change all of the stalls to female use only leaving the males to use of the outdoor port-a-johns. Yup. I had to inform several as I waited for a buddy.
Our running club had a decent showing. Myself, Tracey, Michael, Maureen, Dave, Jeff Put, Patricia and Tom all ran. For some reason when I checked the 100+ photos from the race website, not one single person from our club got there mug on a photo.. Strange.. I wonder if the photographer is tired of me putting his photos of our runners on our website. (I asked for his permission a long time ago to do this)
The first two miles of this race were flat. I started out nice and confident and fast. 7:02, 6:52, yeah, I was feeling pretty good. Mile 3 was a little different. The name of the race is: Old Fashion 10 Miler and FLAT 5K. I really thought that the 10 mile was probably flat as well but I was incorrect. Miles 3 was a little hilly. Not a problem. On I pushed. Mile 4 was a nice relief, flat. 7:04. Cool. Then, mile 5, 6, and 7 were rolling hills. I slowed down. OK, fine, damn. I told myself that no matter how slow I feel that I am going, it always turns out to be a faster pace than I think it will be.
Towards the end of mile 7 I spotted, to my delight, a guy wearing his "Finisher of Ford Ironman" jersey. I sped up (rather easily) to talk shop with him. He was really nice and indulged me in all my questions. Seems he has a really memorable name to. Charlie Brown. He's on FB somewhere but I'll be damned if I can find him. After chatting it up for about two miles, which I must say flew by, I had to let Chuck know that I had to stop talking. After all, this is a race and I was slowing down from all of my blabbing.
I pushed on and managed to speed up by 5 seconds in mile 9. Mile 10 was my 2ND fastest mile. I finished in 1:12:34. 1st in my age group! They gave me a really nice plaque. It was a beautiful day to top it off.
After coming home I came down with a chest cold. In hind sight I think I might have done better if I wasn't coming down with that. However, as Jen said, I'll take that for February.
6 comments:
My thought is that if you could chat you were not working hard enough@!!!! lol.
Yes--the 5k is flat, but the 10 miler is not, so I hear. You had a great race despite your chit chat and your on-coming cold. :) I agree, good for Feb! Congrats on your 1st AG. You forgot to mention that to your readers!
Nice job Melissa!!!!! Oh, how I wish I could so easily rip off 7:00's while chatting during a race. :) SWEET!
congrats on the first in your AG!!!
Charlie Brown???
wah, wah wah, wah....
That makes me sounds like I didn't think you did well. HAHA....YOU DID...but you said you were not 100%....and I have to agree with MARY...IF you were talking, you were not going hard enough! talking? nono no. :)) Congrats on your 1st in AG and a GREAT job in feb.
Wow! You fast runners amaze me. Congratulations on an awesome race. I can only dream of running ONE mile at your pace and then keeling over in the snow. You're going to be kicking ass and taking names when you get to run against all those triathletes.
Wow that's a lot of turkeys in your neighood. Awesome, 1st place in your age group. Nicely done.
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