1/4 marathon race report.
My first race in 27 months.
I have managed about 17 weeks of training and have
done 8 and 10 mile long runs while hitting low 20 miles
for about the last 6 weeks. This after being injured for
about 9 months.
This is a local race and I did a mini taper getting ready.
It has been known to be hot in previous races,
but rain clouds came through yesterday and it
was overcast and low 60s for the start, so pretty good.
Caught the first bus to the start line, gossiped with
some old timers, did some stretching and warm ups,
listened to prerace instructions, lined up, and we're off.
My 10k best so far has been about 8:55 pace, but that
was a fairly easy run a month ago. I suspect under
perfect conditions I could get close to 8 flat.
For this race I thought 8:30 would be great and 8:45 good.
The turn out for this race has gone down ever since they added
a 5k event and the slower runners opted into that, but with some
money up top the quality has gone up. I used to finish about
20 out of 90, but the last time (3 years ago) I finished 30 out of 60.
I take off at what feels the right pace, which is usually faster than
my solo runs because of the adrenaline rush provided
by the other runners.
Mile 1 in 8:18, about what I was expecting on the flat and
fast portion.
Mile 2 in 8:10. This surprised me. There is a significant hill
at about mile 1.7 and I usually slow down for this mile.
But the course has changed. This section was now an out
and back and after climbing the big hill we turned around and
got to run back down it. Maybe that is where I picked up the time.
Mile 3 in 8:07. This is another surprise. On the old course we
would be going through a hilly trail section. But now we are on
a paved road with only one gentle hill.
Mile 4 in 8:41. More like it. Significant hills and I was starting to
heat up. Plus my knee was getting sore. I had been running alone
since about the 2 minute mark. The 4 mile marker was at the start
of another significant hill.
My goal going into the race was to not get injured.
My last race, 27 months ago, got me a twisted ankle 2 miles in.
I recovered in a couple of weeks, but then got another injury
and was on the shelf all winter. Started up in the spring,
got another injury, and lost most of last year.
Since then I have been a little bit hesitant psychologically.
Not hammering as hard as I could, or cutting runs short,
worried that I might be heading for another injury.
So I was hurting a little coming into the 4 mile mark, and prerace I
promised myself to be careful, so after the marker I walked the hill.
The runner ahead of me also walked the hill, and the runner behind
me caught up in the 1:40 it took me to walk to the top. Basically the
walk cost me 50 second, or about 8 seconds per mile. I didn't mind,
I was happy to be running again and time wasn't important.
At the top of the hill I picked it up again and maintained about the same
pace as before. I was expecting mile 5 to come in at about 9:20 because
of the walk, so the 9:25 was no surprise.
By now we were in the downhill section of the race heading to the finish line.
I started stretching it out and passed the runner who had caught me, and
then passed the runner ahead who had also walked the hill. If they caught back
up to me I decided I wouldn't hammer to hold them off. Preventing injury was
more important than a meaningless place in a small race.
They never caught me. I opened up about a 20 second lead and with the gentle
downhill heading to the finish line my normal hard effort held the gap.
Mile 6 in 8:07, the .55 or so odd amount in 4:57, for a finish time of 55:45.
Good effort, no problems, 8:32 pace means about a 2 minute SB at the 10k split.
Great run. Time was only OK by old standards, but to be collecting t-shirts again is great.
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Edit:
I was 12th out of 41 finishers.
Somehow they credited me 7 seconds faster than my watch.
There were 2 DNFs, I had never seen that before.
A few years ago they put some money up for the top 3 spots
(festival dollars and gift cards from the sponsoring grocery store)
and a slew of better runners had started to show up, but not
this year. Times were slower and the field smaller. Maybe another
race conflicted with the date, or bad advertising, or something.
The race was part of a local festival, and I noticed somel changes.
The festival royalty was not at the start line.
They did not play the national anthem.
There was a new timing company running the statistics.
The emcee called the race a quarter mile marathon,
until I explained to him that it is a quarter marathon.
They didn't play music at the finish line.
They didn't have age group ribbons.
But over all the race was fine for a small local event.
The biggest finish line applause was for a 4 year old girl who
trotted to the 5k finish line in about 52 minutes. I'm sure she
crushed her age group.
