Shamrock Shuffle was Sunday morning. Beautiful morning, upper 30's, low 40's. Sun shining with little wind. Can't really ask for much more from a Wisconsin March morning.
I didn't really have a plan going in. I wanted to beat last year's time but I also didn't feel like running hard. Every workout this week has been a struggle since last weeks effort. I even felt the soreness while swimming.
Just run. That was "the plan". Tried to go out easy, was getting passed by everybody and their mother. Didn't care. Approaching the turn around I spotted what appeared to be a 9-year old boy running with his father, probably 1/4 mile ahead of me (and I'm still running sub 9-min/miles). Unbelievable.
I kind of forgot about him but saw them again around the 4-mile mark maybe 200 yards ahead of me. Mission, catch him. But it was starting to be a real struggle, and that #$*&?!@ hill was coming. Around maybe 4.5 miles I stopped for water and walked a bit before the hill. Then the hill, which I ended up walking up maybe 1/2 of. My saving grace was being able to basically tumble down Observatory Drive. I closed on the kid quite a bit on this section and ended up catching him in the last 0.2 miles. I have to hand it to him, that is one hell of a run for a youngster.
Official Race Statistics:
Final time: 55:19 - 8:55min/mile pace ( a total of 21 seconds faster than last year)
71/108 age group
212/303 men
321/625 overall
From my watch:
Mile 1 - 8.55 / 155 bpm
Mile 2 - 8:39 / 164 bpm
Mile 3 - 8:56 / 169 bpm
Mile 4 - 9:10 / 170 bpm
Mile 5 - 9:04 / 173 bpm
Mile 6 - 8:54 / 174 bpm
Mile 6-6.2 - 7:44 / 180 bpm
1 comment:
Great race and way to go with the last the mile --- you really kicked it in there! I've learned that you can NEVER tell how fast someone is by how they look -- age, gender, height, weight, clothing, gear. I've been passed by 70 year olds in cotton tshirts and I've passed guys that are much fitter looking than me. you never know !
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