I'm not going to lie, I wanted to have a good race for Club Challenge. I know I was nowhere near scoring (even all the scoring females on the team finished ahead of me). But, I spent all of 2011 grinding and I'm OK with that. But 2012 is going to be the year of some drastic improvements, in a last gasp attempt to see what I can do in my 'prime.' I put some nice mileage weeks including a 45 mile week that topped my peak week in 2011. I did a mini taper with two off days and a short shake out jog on Saturday. The race was Sunday morning. I did go out and have a couple of beers the night before, but that was really it.
The race itself is somewhat challenging. Not as much as the Lewis 10 miler a few weeks back, but still needs to be respected. Having done 2 workouts out on the course with my That's What She Said brethren helped a lot. It was nice running weather, somewhere in the mid 30's. I ran in the nice singlet courtesy of Falls Road, which necessitated my purchase of proper running shorts a couple of weeks back. The new pair of Sky Speeds I bought (to replace the exact same pair) were broken in and feeling fine.
Fully aware that I start all my races too fast I tried to start out reasonable pace around 7 minutes. Goal time was 70 minutes, so it would have been nice to start out at that pace. But I was a bit under that. I caught another member of the team and we were running together through 3 (somewhere in the neighborhood of 20:20 pace). At this point I told her something to the effect of 'if I settle in you should go.' Kinda silly, she was running strong and smart and didn't need any help from me...
I don't really trust the mile markers on the course, but I was through 5 at 34 flat. Even if it was off by a minute or so it still meant I ran the first 5 around the same time as Celtic Solstice in December. And that was a good race for 2011. So I can live with that. But two other members of the team had passed me, both on their way to sub 70 minute races. The rolling hills were toughest through 6 and as I climbed Jon caught and passed me. A bit demoralizing, but it did keep me from walking and I kept him in sight for most of the rest of the race. He finished a minute and a half faster in 1:10.30 or so.
I dropped in pace for sure the last couple of miles (a made an attempt to pick up the last mile, but when I went a quarter of mile and saw the mile 9 sign it confused me and broke my spirit a bit). But it wasn't a death march and I came home in 1:12 exactly on the clock. I looked up to see it with about 10 seconds to go before 1:12, so I picked up the last few steps to make the time. Still not as fast as when I was 13 (albeit on a tougher course), so I'll have to wait until Cherry Blossom in April in order to give that time a try.
Next up, however, is the Leap day 4k and Shamrock 5k. I seemed to catch something Monday which put me out of commission so I'm not optimistic about the 4k. Shamrock should see a recent era PR for the 5k, though.
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