Last year: Cold, 30 degree weather, rain, less than optimal cherry blossoms on the trees, terrible photos of me looking like I'm dying a slow painful death on the photo website
Time: 1:40:08
This year: Sunny, 45-50 degree weather (beautiful!), peak cherry blossom canopy, absolutely no photos of me to be found ... Hmm... maybe I actually dreamed this year's race...
Time: 1:23:26
A 17-minute difference?! Insanity at its best :) And note, there were no magic tights. I was in shorts and a t-shirt on this run. It was all me this time :)
I account the crazy speed difference to a couple things:
- Training with Mark, Ken and Emaad consistently for the past year (thanks guys!)
- I learned what the word "pacing" means ... All 10 miles this year were within 15 seconds of each other! Last year, I was all over the charts.
- 15 pound weight loss - can't hurt!
- And finally, last year I was timid with the crowds. This year, I made use of my elbows (especially on the people running slow with headphones on so they couldn't hear me yelling "ON YOUR LEFT"). And I feel no shame in making use of the good elbows God gave me. After all, I am Italian...
The day started off nice and early ... with a 4:30 am trip to McDonalds to get some coffee, and of course, I had my obligatory pre-run bagel with peanut butter. I met Emaad at the metro, where he was not quite awake (ok, not awake at all), and I chatted his ear off as we went down to Cherry Blossom start. We timed it perfectly - we had some time to check our stuff at bag check, and only spent about 20 minutes pre-race chilling out in our "corral." By the way, I hate the use of the word "corral" - it makes me feel like I'm part of a herd of cattle! Can't they call us the "red group" instead of the "red corral"?
Once the race started, I lost Emaad in the masses of people, and didn't find him again until we met at our pre-determined rendezvous point. During my run, I was annoyed with the crowds for the first couple of miles, especially all of the people with headphones zig-zagging all over the place. But I kept my pace right where I wanted it to be ... Like I said above, all 10 of my miles were between 8:15 and 8:30. Around mile 5, I started running with people who were my pace (as opposed to passing people, or having people pass me). I made no stops along the way - no water, no nothing. I was on a mission. Under 1:28 or bust.
I started getting tired after mile 7, and the last 3 miles were a struggle for me to keep pace, but the end result was awesome ... a new PR (and feeling awesome about myself and about the upcoming Frederick Marathon) of 1:23:46 (that's an 8:23 pace). I met up with Emaad shortly after I finished ... he finished in a PR as well, so we were both happy campers on the metro ride back home!
1 comment:
fabulous result --- congrats, CM! --- sounds like your pacing was near-perfect too --- brava! --- 15 lbs. weight loss gives you only 2 sec/mile/lb. * 15 lbs. * 10 miles = 5 minutes, so the majority of your improvement was from the investment you made in training during the past year, I suspect ... excellent job! \(^_^)/
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