Born To Run 15k Recap

Just two weeks to go now. As part of my final preparations I decided to run the Born To Run 15k in Eugene this morning. The distance was what I needed for my Saturday run this week and I wanted to do sort of a final walk-through of all my pre-race and race strategies I've been experiment and training with.

Pre-Race

The weather was threatening. The hour leading up to race time varied between drizzle and downpour. And it was cold. I debated whether to wear a short sleeve or no sleeve shirt, jacket or no jacket, gloves or not? How about my head scarf? So many last minute decisions. I finally decided I would go without sleeves, jacket or gloves. Headscarf, yes. Fortunately, the rain tapered off as the race begun, and except for two cold hands for the first few minutes, I made the correct choices (the headscarf came off around mile 4).

I actually warmed up for the first time also. I've been struggling lately with my first mile of any run. Just sore and uncomfortable, but then it all goes away and I felt great. I took a light half mile jog a few minutes before the start and I'm glad I did. Once the cowbell was sounded (and is some cowbell is good, MORE cowbell is better), I was ready to go right from the start.

Race

I went out too fast. And I knew it. But darn it, I felt good. I managed to keep the pace for the first mile and then slowed slightly into a good pace (7:30-7:40) for the next two or three miles. As with most of the races I run, I somehow found myself all alone for the bulk of the miles. The last person to pass me did so in mile 3 and I didn't see another person until about mile 6. But it wasn't someone coming up on me -- I was coming up on them.

The guy I could see a half mile or so up the path had passed me in the second mile. He seemed pretty far out, but with 3 miles still to go I picked up my pace slightly and kept an eye on him. For the next two miles I made up a little bit of ground, but he was still probably a quarter mile in front of me. I was still feeling great though, and made the decision at 7.5 miles that I was really going to push myself the rest of the way.

Side Note: I fully intended to run the entire race at the pace I hope to run in two weeks. (7:45-7:55). After feeling so good the first 6 or 7 miles though, and knowing that I had a seemingly full tank of fuel left, and seeing this guy in front of me, my competitiveness overrided all other systems and said run this guy down.

And so I did.

I caught up to him around the 8.25 mile mark and just to make sure he knew I wasn't slowing down once I did, I zoomed by him and kept on going. He wasn't going to pass me again.

I came to a pond and had about 0.6 miles to go. This distance is significant to me. I'll talk about about "Finishing Fuel" in the next few days, but every training run I do that ends at my house has a final stretch of 0.6 miles that I push myself as hard as I can. I've run this distance dozens of times over the last 19 weeks and I visualized the last portion of the race as nothing more than running home.

I finished strong and crossed the finish line a 1:11:48, good enough for 19th overall.

Post-Race

Only running 9 miles today feels weird. After so many Saturday runs of twice that (or more), I feel like I haven't done anything today. I guess that's the taper though. And I trust my body will thank me for it, come June 5th.

I'm glad I got one more race in though. It gave me a chance to focus on my thoughts, running tangents (something nearly impossible to do on my regular routes), negotiate aid stations, when to eat something during the race and a few other things I've been thinking about.

All systems are go for Newport in two weeks. I need to keep myself busy this week though, as I'll only be running 3, 5 and 3 miles on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday, respectively. My goal this week is to just not hurt myself.