Saturday, April 2, 2011

Ron Daws Race Report

Last night I went to get my racing clothes ready and I kind of wanted to go Ryan Hall style--shorts, a singlet, and arm warmers. Personally I thought it looked pretty sweet but Laura said I looked "stupid," so it was another long sleeve tech shirt race.

The weather was nicer today than last weekend. I'm guessing it was close to 40 by about halfway through the race--I even rolled my sleeves up (if I had arm warmers on I could've just put 'em in my pockets). I was planning to use the Ron Daws 25k as a marathon pace run to practice for Boston. I was thinking I'd go out at about 6:45 and see how that felt. If it felt marathon pacy enough I'd stay there and if it felt easy I'd pick it up a little bit. Then, I was planning on running the last two miles fast.

Instead, I ended up running the whole thing a little faster than I planned. I didn't run one mile at 6:45 pace--my slowest my ended up being 6:43. I felt good the whole time though and I really didn't feel like I was pushing it until the last two miles. Even then I never felt like I was redlining. The course was tough with a lot of up and down but I handled it better than I did during the 7 mile last week. My quads felt it a little but I was still able to move pretty quickly on the downhills and not give up too much going up.

Overall it was a pretty good race. I got to run with a friend from Minnesota Running Wild for the first several miles and another friend ran well out ahead of me while a third was somewhere behind us. I also got in a nice pace--a little under 6:30 for the whole thing with the last couple miles at under 6 minutes to finish at 1:42:18. It felt good picking it up the last two miles and passing four runners ahead of me. Now, no more racing until Boston.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Awww. . . too bad Laura didn't let you wear your arm sleeves--I have a pair, and I feel hardcore when I wear them. ;)