For Thanksgiving I did the Turkey Trot 10K held by Inside Out Sports in Cary.  Ive been waiting to post the results till I knew how I did officially.  I wasnt enthused about doing the race on race day.  When I woke up I didnt want to go, when I got there I didnt want to run, and after the first mile I wanted to stop.  Definitely not the mindset to have for a race.  The weather was cold and misty.   Not really sprinkling but definitely a humid mist that sticks to you.

The course was over several hills, you might remember that the 10K I did in Cary was also from Inside Out Sports.  The course didnt cover any of the same roads but still held the suprising hills that I dont normally relate when thinking of Cary.  The mile markers werent reliable so I wasnt able to keep track of my splits to see how I was progressing.  I kept my heart rate at about 170 the whole way but I could feel myself burning out mentally faster than my heart rate seemed to do.  At about the halfway mark I started being passed without being able to put up resistance to it.  I was pretty sure that my final time wasnt going to be good.  Especially when I got to the finish and again couldnt muster up a kick to finish out and pass anyone.  All I wanted to do was be done with the race and head home.

In the end my final time actually ended up being a tie with my personal best pace for races over 5K.  My pace per mile was 7:53 which tied the Old Reliable Run 10K a couple weeks earlier.  My overall time was 39:11 and placed me 149 out of 434 runners.  So while it was one of my faster times it was disappointingly average in comparison to the rest of the field that raced that day.

This was the final race of the Second Empire Grand Prix and Im sure locked up my top 10 spot for my age group.

Its been a while since I updated, I can tell cause those piece of **** spammers have registered a bunch of users on my message board again. Of course they are now deleted, they seem not to care that I disabled the website entry on the registrations which means they will get zero traffic by spamming my site. I guess its enough to be a harassment and annoyance since thats the only reason they exist anyway. Im not bitter, just wish every single spammer would get hit by a car, heal up, then get hit again perpetually till they die of old age.

I did the Old Reliable 10K Run for the second time in downtown Raleigh. I did this race last year with my friend Zack. It was his first organized run and I offered to do it with him to keep myself in shape after last years Ride for the Roses and not let myself fall too far out of shape for building up for this years ride. Since he had never run a distance like that before or a race we ran together with me pacing us by my heart rate monitor since we’re physically a similar shape. We did the whole race at 80% with me kicking up with about half a mile to go and passing about 30 people. Sounds impressive but when there are over a 1000 runners its not hard to do.

This year Zack planned on running it again and we met up at my place and headed down. It had been raining all morning but luckily finished up right before we headed out to the start. By race time it was just a mist but still fairly chilly. I let Zack know that i was going to try to push myself a bit so I’d meet him at the finish. We both planned on beating last years time.

I got out at a decent pace with my first mile around 7:42. The second I slowed up to around 8:30 and then was able to do negative splits the rest of the miles topping back out at slightly under 8 minutes a mile. The course has plenty of long gradual hills that make you ache and suffer the whole way up them. After reading some articles and talking with other runners I decided to try to peg my heart rate at about 85-90% of my max which basically had me running at right around 170bpm. That pace definitely made me suffer more than usual and thoughts of quitting weren’t hard to come by but luckily i didnt. I remembered the quote by Lance Armstrong I read at this years Livestrong Challenge about not remembering pain but never forgetting quitting. There was also a girl in front of me for a couple miles with a shirt that read “Running is a mental sport…cause we’re all crazy” which kept me going as well.

At the end I attempted to do a kick but couldnt even get one started. For the first time I found myself being passed at the finish and completely and utterly spent. Normally I can pick up a few spots in the last block or so but when I tried I couldnt even close the gap on people a few feet ahead so backed off. I was able to stretch out some and walked back a few blocks to run in with Zack to the finish to cool down.

Zack finished 53:48 at a pace of 8:43 and finished 452nd which was 2:59 seconds faster than last year and 54 seconds a mile faster on his pace. In the end my time was 48:37 at a pace of 7:53 a mile. Just like the Nike 5K the week before it was a new personal best for the distance. I was 241st out of 762 competitive runners and 20th out of 50 in my division. Last year I finished in 57:16 at a pace of 9:16 a mile. Then I was 672 out of 913 and cant find my division place. Overall a pretty good improvement. I shaved 8:39 seconds off my overall time and 1:23 off my pace per mile. I cant complain about those numbers at all. My goal next year is to crack the top 100.

So the trend of running continues as I did the Nike 5K here in Raleigh yesterday.  This was another race that was part of the Second Empire Grand Prix series and having finished it Ive now done the required three races.  Ill still be doing the Thanksgiving Turkey Trot 8K which is the last of the races since I wont be leaving town.  For the Nike 5K I set a PR (Personal Record) of 23:18 gun time and 23:07 chip time and 89th out of 236.  The race was pretty hilly and the first mile was a steep downhill section which put my first mile split at 7:01, which I was suprised by.  And yet again my heart rate monitor popped off, but this time I immediately ripped it off and carried it.  After I did that though the uphills kicked in and I felt like I was about to die.  I hadnt realized just how dependent I had become on the monitor but when its gone I feel like Im dieing which is probably completely mental.  I did the second mile split in 7:48 and I could feel myself slowing the whole way, I was even getting passed by one or two people which irritated me.

I hit a big wall after that because the whole course seemed as if it were a gradual uphill climb after that steep downhill start.  I wanted to quit pretty bad, more badly than I remember wanting to before but I latched on to a runner and paced the rest of the way in.  If I had been smarter I would’ve realized going down that hill meant going up that steep hill to the finish and I turned onto the road hating life.  I was passed at the bottom of the hill by a group of four and I though about kicking it to the finish but knew Id burn out too soon.  I let the group get about 10 feet ahead by the half of the hill and could hear the finish so said screw it and took off, which really meant a couple steps faster.  Either way I got past that group and saw one more runner I could catch before finishing so pushed myself too far yet again to the end but did manage to catch that last runner.

It did help that Ive been reading more about running, preparing, stretching, etc.  This race I did my normal set of stretches then did a warm up run as well as another set of stretches after warming up.  I read that a one degree celcius change in your muscle temp is a 13% increase in effeciency.  I made sure to eat in the morning as well which definitely helped in the long run, no pun intended.  We’ll see if the trend continues for the next couple races.  I have been following a training program for the past three weeks and that may be one reason for improvement but I havent seen much time improvement in the training runs.  I think the downhill mile is what set the record more than preparation this time around.