I did a four mile road race today called “Four on the Fourth”. It was a lovely race course through the gently rolling hills of Carrboro, NC. The course seemed mostly flat, with no real hills…just some long gentle rollers.
This was a “train through race”, meaning I didn’t train for it or even taper. I ran 6 miles on Wednesday. Last night, I did a hard bike workout ( Spinervals “Suffer-o-rama ) plus, I swam ~2100 meters with my Jordan Lake buddies.
I had hoped for a 32 minute finish time. I’m always chasing a pace of 8 in my running, and always falling short. The top finishers in my age group prior years had ~30 minute finish times, so I had no hope of an award: no way I can do a sub 8 pace for four miles!
My real goal for this race was to try and stick with people who passed me – who were going just a little bit faster. I can do that on the bike. I cannot do that on the run. Several times throughout the race, someone passed me going a little faster. I tried to stick by them, but I just couldn’t do it. So, I didn’t make that goal.
About a half mile into the race, Kari Wilkinson flew past me. I asked her if she arrived late. She said she rode her bike and misjudged the distance, so she did get a late start. I think she lives pretty far away from Carrboro, so she’s amazing to be running so fast after a long bike. How do you get to be THAT good at running? Kari is a USAT coach and Chi Running instructor.
Pose, Chi, they’re pretty much the same thing – getting gravity to work for you. I don’t think I’m quite getting the whole gravity thing. I feel like my best bet to improved running is losing weight (within reason, of course). I’m pretty good at losing weight, even though it’s hard work.
As I saw Kari’s orange shirt speed away from me, I thought “There goes a 33% less chance of me placing top three in this race”. Then I thought “33% of zero is still zero – HAHAHA”. Most purely running races are full of hard core runners that I just can’t compare myself to. But I do. Why do I do that?
I chanted “Just hang on, Suffer Well” in my head throughout much of the race. It’s a song by Depeche Mode that I love to listen to while running, and once, it helped me get to a place which I call “running nirvana“. I have yet to find that place again. I wonder if getting to the place has something to do with the whole gravity thing?
I passed a woman named Juliet shortly after seeing Kari. I saw both her and Kari at my Over the Mountain race. Juliet must have been close to me the whole race, because in the final stretch, she sped past me. Then I picked up my pace and passed her. I couldn’t hold it, tho, so she beat me in the end. I didn’t see her after the race to congratulate her. Way to go, Juliet!! (I doubt she reads my blog, but just in case, there it is!)
Even tho I am being my own worst critic here, I do feel good about my time of just under 34 minutes. I actually ran the first half in 16:08, so I was very close to my 8 minute per mile dream pace. I slowed down in the second half and ran 9 minute miles. I sensed that I was slowing down then, because more people started passing me.
After the race, I sat in a shady spot in the grass talking to a woman named Ann. She was very happy with her race, and met her goal of sub 40 by alot. Great job, Ann! She is training for her first triathlon – the Ramblin’ Rose triathlon in Chapel Hill, NC. I showed her my running cap, which is from that race! Here’s a picture of that hat! Ann: here’s a link to that triathlon training plan I was telling you about!
Official Results are in:
Time: 33:54:14, pace of 8:28 per mile
Place: 193 out of 411 = top 46%
They don’t break down the results into age groups and genders, except for award winners. Kari got third place in our age group. I wonder how much time being late cost her 🙁
HR data:
Overall: 171 bmp average / 185 bpm max.
Lap 1: 170 avg, 170 end of lap
Lap 2: 173 avg, 173 end of lap (I didn’t hit stop button for about 20 seconds, so my HR had already gone down by then. Most likely, that 185 max happened when I was racing against Juliet in the final stretch.)
Anyway, Clearly, I was working hard!