Funny. On Tuesday, I started typing up this race report based on how I was feeling after that run. I decided to delete it and start over since it wasn't very positive. LOL But I did beat my #1 goal from that draft entry to go sub-30. Overall, I'm glad I ran this race. If I hadn't already paid for it, I would have skipped it. I'm no where near where I wanted to be for this, but I knew I could finish the distance and it's practically in my backyard. I had the fleeting thought that I should just go pick up my shirt and leave, but decided I couldn't wear the shirt if I wasn't going to run it or I'd end up being one of "those" people. I decided to just do it and not worry about my time. I had little hope of beating my time the only other time I ran this in 2010. I took my son with me and he ended up having a blast. On our way to the registration table, I heard my name shouted - it was my buddy Greg and his fiance, Liz. We had about 15 mins until the race, so we chatted for a few minutes then Zayne and I ran to get my number. Zayne had met Greg before and remembered him. It was our first time meeting his fiance and she's awesome, of course. I had let Zayne keep my phone so he could play on it while I was out on the course if he wanted. As we're lined up and about 30 secs from the gun, he runs up to me through all the runners with my phone so I could unlock it for him. Not sure if he would have run after me or maybe caught me on the first out-n-back to put the password in for him. That could have been interesting! Turns out he didn't even play on it. Race started right at 7:00pm, they're good about that. This is a small race (300 or so), but very well put on since they've done it for 16 years, I think. Anyways, Greg was pretty sure to win it since his other team member that beat him by a few seconds last year wasn't racing this year. On the first out-n-back, he was leading with 3 guys following. On the way down from the Observatory (about .8mi) he had a good 10 sec lead. They had two motorcycle cops escorting and Greg told me after the race he actually had to go around the one in front at one point because he was going too slow! Greg won with a 16:54, beating his time last year by 15 sec. He's a speedy guy! I hadn't had time to warm up at all - but wasn't really planning on it to be honest, so I was just taking it easy. Before the race, I turned off the auto-lap on the Garmin and set the display to just show avg. pace, HR, and current pace. I didn't want the beeps going off and me calculating where I was in relation to my time from two years ago. I just ran it, keeping it reasonable but still hitting 170s on the HRM even on the downhill. Zayne was there at the start of the downhill and yelled encouragement, which was great. Skipped the "1 mi" water station. They had the station the same place before, and as I was coming up to it, the timer read 9:10. Looking at the Garmin, my avg pace was about 8:40 so I was confused. When I got home, it was actually about 1.15mi. So that made more sense. Anyways, the first mile felt tough like I hadn't run in a couple weeks. LOL But I got through it, and the second mile was all downhill. I kept following these two 10 or 11 year old boys with the pink shirts with their nicknames on the back that their whole extended family of probably 20 were wearing for the race. The three of us and a couple other runners were about the only ones in our vicinity that were running tangents. Everyone else was running the bike path lane for some reason - they looked like sheep just following everyone else to a cliff (aka longer route). I was hitting 175 on the HRM at the 2mi water station (this one was correct) and I walked through for 10 sec or so for a quick break. Then it was uphill to the finish. I kept rolling until about 2.4mi then I started to take short walk breaks every .2 mi or so as I was going up. I didn't want to walk, but I still didn't really care about my time since my avg pace was going up over 9:00 so a sub-27 wasn't going to happen anyways. I just kept rollin' along but as I was reaching what I thought was the last curve at the top, I switched over to see a 2.9mi on the distance so I wasn't fooled this time and I decided to kick it in. I had been passed by this guy who we'd trade "leads" back and forth. I had let him go on the hill, but he must have walked a little too because I saw him on the final straight away. I didn't really care if he beat me, but when I saw the 27:xx on the timer and he was within reach, I had to see if I could squeak in before him. About 15' from the finish line, I came up beside him, and he didn't kick so I gave it just enough to get into the chute before him. LOL Booya! Don't mess with BNS. I have a feeling if it had been a chick, she would have kicked it and I'd have been chicked at the line! Zayne told me that after he saw Greg break the finish line ribbon, he talked to the finish official and told him he wanted to hold it out for me. The guy said that he could, but that I'd have to go on the other side of the chute rope. Zayne was going to do it, but couldn't get to it in time when I was finishing since they had all the spectators behind a rope fence. I'm surprised they would have let him, but that's the cool thing about small, local races, I suppose. And such a nice gesture by Zayne! Splits (2012 / 2010):
1.0 - 8:34 / 9:44
2.0 - 7:46 / 7:44 - surprised this one is so close
3.0 - 10:11 / 8:43 - no surprise
0.15 - 1:16 (7:25) / 1:18 (7:40) So we hung out afterwards, ate oranges, bananas, pretzels, etc. and waited for the awards ceremony. They did it weird this year. They started with the AG awards from the bottom up and sprinkled raffle drawings in there, with the overall winners at the end. They gave Greg the AG win AND the overall so he got two medals...strange they'd do it like that. Usually if you're overall, you aren't included in the AG. I didn't go look up the printed results since I knew I didn't need to stick around for the AG for me. I'll look it up once it's posted and update the overall and AG rankings when available. Anyways, we started heading back to the car and Zayne and I are chatting and he said something that made my night. He told me that even though I didn't get the police escort that they give Greg, that I was still fast, did a great job and he was proud of me. Aww, such a great son! I did have to explain to him that the police escort wasn't specifically for Greg...but for whomever the leader was at the time...to keep the road clear for them as they head through the course. It just so happened it ended up being all Greg's since he led the whole race, but that isn't always the case. He had thought they would have stuck with Greg no matter where he was in the race. LOL Congrats if you made it this far. Another super long-winded RR full of my random, wordy thoughts from BNS. Sorry folks. One day I'll learn to write succinctly and just cover the essentials. The writing training should be an essential part of my Marathon training because I'm afraid of what my RR for a full Marathon might look like! :-)
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