Ouch

Yesterday's Point Bock Run turned into 5-miles of hurt. Recovery hasn't been much better.

Weather was perfect but in that odd range where I had no idea what to wear. Upper 30's, little wind, no sun. Wore pants to the race site over shorts, long sleeve pullover over a tech t-shirt and a sleeveless UA compression top. About twenty minutes prior to the start I made the call to run in shorts. Was definitely in the minority, but it was absolutely the right call. Legs were never cold, hands were for a short spell, but I was still soaked through by race end. Pants would have made it much worse.

Course is an out an back with no real hills, just long steady gradual climbs. Plan going in was to go out easy, then drop the hammer on the way back. I don't follow my race plans very well.

About 1/4 mile in I looked at my watch and saw we were moving at 7:5x pace. Not good. By the middle of the second mile I was already in hold on mode, with a side stitch making it's presence known. Running up to the turn around seemed to take forever, made easier only by watching the leaders and the front of the pack go by (at a sub 5-minute mile pace).

Watching the back half of the pack after the turn around made the rest of mile 3 bearable. Mile 4 was hell, I think I checked my watch at least 10 times during this mile, searching for the last mile marker constantly. Once to the last mile, stopping or slowing down was no longer an option. Less than 10-minutes left.

I didn't puke, but I think I easily could have. Probably took me a good 10-minutes to get recovered.

The details from my watch:

Mile 1: 8:02/mile, 158 bpm (heart rate)
Mile 2: 8:25/mile, 169 bpm
Mile 3: 8:28/mile, 171 bpm
Mile 4: 8:18/mile, 176 bpm
Mile 5: 8:14/mile, 177 bpm

Official Results

Race Time: 41:39 (8:20/mile)
First 1/2 Split : 20:53
Second 1/2 Split: 20:46

30/75 Age Group
336/668 Male
421/1200+ Overall

The good:

Made my goal time of 42 minutes, or was it 43, either way.
Made it into the upper 1/2 of my age group, a first by a long shot.
Almost did the same among men.
Only got beat by 85 out of almost 600 women.
Beat last years time by almost 7 minutes.
Survived.

The bad:

Which really isn't that bad, just a perception issue on my part. I'm disappointed, and I can't really explain why. Seems like I shouldn't have had to work that hard to basically match my 5K PR pace (which I don't remember being nearly as painful). Oh well.

The ugly:

It hurts to run that hard (I typically run in the low 150's for a heart rate and at 10+ minute miles). And it still hurts. Although I'm sure some of it may be contributed to Point Beer, PBR, and Captain Morgan.

Good times, now I get to go sit on the trainer for 2-hours. We'll just call that active recovery.