Thursday, November 24, 2011

Turkey Trot 8k (11-24-11)

I didn't really have any goals going into this race. But I wanted to run the best race I could in order to gauge my current fitness. I told myself that unlike my last race, I wasn't gonna go out slow. I'd like to run hard from start to finish.

Despite lining up at an appropriate distance from the start line, I still did a fair amount of weaving at the beginning. It cleared out after a couple minutes and I fell into a steady pace. When I hit the first mile marker my watch said 6:46, I thought to myself "wow, it didn't feel like I was running too hard, this is gonna be great!" I kept a pretty similar pace for mile 2, maybe slowed down a bit, and mile 2 came in at 8:00. I realized immediately that mile 1 was short and mile 2 was long. 

By mile 2.5 I was starting to feel pretty fatigued. I had to ease off the pace some. Mile 3 came in at 7:14. I was hurting pretty badly here. I started getting some bad stomach cramps. I could feel my form slipping. Mile 4 was 7:23. It was nice knowing I only had 1 mile to go. I was able to pick it up slightly, but I felt like the cramps were really holding me back. Seeing the finish line was a nice sight, and I had a solid kick at the end.

Mile 1 (0.92 miles)- 6:46 
Mile 2 (1.09 miles)- 8:00 
Mile 3- 7:14
Mile 4- 7:23
0.97- 6:46
FINISH- 36:13 (7:17 pace)

I gotta admit that I'm a little disappointed by this race. I was hoping that I'd be more fit. I also just didn't feel as strong as I would have liked. Hopefully this winter will be a good training season for me and I'll see some decent improvement.