The racing season is officially started. Granted, I have participated in a couple bike races before this past weekend, but they were more of an “on a whim” high intensity workout since there was no dedicated training for them. Instead, this past weekend brought my first planned race of 2010, the KY Derby Festival miniMarathon, a race I have run multiple times before and that is a favorite of mine.
After busting out a new PR last year with 1:32:07, I was hoping for big things again this year. Obviously, the next obvious goal is to break 1:30, but back in the fall when I was goal-setting, I decided that sub 1:27 would be my target…a reach for sure. I don’t remember how I came up with that number now, but it’s been in my season plan for some time now.
In the past few weeks, I had been focused more on bike racing and had been doing my training runs on tired legs. Until the week of the race, I had serious doubts if I could even break 1:30, and 1:27 was simply off the radar. I hadn’t lost the extra few pounds I was hoping to over the winter, so that was also a limiter. However, some days off in the past week and a half and a major reduction in biking to prep for this race was the refresher my legs needed. I hadn’t run on fresh legs until the week before race-day for months, so it was quite a rush to have the spring back in my step. I took things pretty easy race-week to ensure they stayed fresh and ready. My confidence in sub 1:30 was back, although 1:27 was still pretty doubtful…so I decided to race conservatively and negative split the run. My rationale was if I were to go for 1:27 and “blow up” I’d likely miss 1:30 as well, but if I started at 1:30 and worked down I may not catch up to 1:27, but would still be safely in the 1:20’s...Enough rambling, on to the race report.
Race morning, I woke to drizzly, high 50’s weather…warmer than I was hoping for 6AM, but the rain kept it cool enough. I got to the start line and in the corral about 15mins early, and other than not being able to make a pre-race bathroom break since the bathrooms were hidden away somewhere, all was well. I had my Forerunner 305 with me to help with the pacing. I took out the first mile at about 7 minute pace, intentionally slow, but also attributed to the crowds at the start. At mile 2 the race enters Iroquois Park, which is where the hills are. It’s a loop with a bigger climb at the beginning and the end, then 2 smaller climbs in the middle. All of this is over the course of 3 or so miles. I focused on small steps and high cadence on the uphill sections and used momentum and gravity to my advantage on the downhills. Before I knew it, the park was gone and we were on the long straightaway to Churchill Downs.
At this point I was around 34minutes at the 5 mile mark and everything seemed pretty solid. However, I was still uncertain in how I’d hold up, so kept the pace around 6:40-6:45 per mile. Somewhere along the way I just kind of settled into this pace. After leaving Churchill Downs and passing mile 8, my legs were hurting to the point where I knew taking the pace up would not be smart, but I could still maintain well enough. Then, I began the math game…calculating at every mile how ahead of 1:30 I was and if I could still make it if I slowed to x:xx pace for the remainder. Each time I had nearly decided to slow down, I convinced myself to try for one more mile to increase the margin for error. Before I knew it, I was in the last 1.5 miles and was passing people. This, and hearing the upcoming finish line, created its own momentum and pushed me to the finish.
I turned onto the finishing stretch, which was slightly downhill, and got hit with a rush of adrenaline I haven’t felt in a while. I put a pretty solid kick in and enjoyed my finishing stretch. I crossed the line in 1:28:32 (6:45.5/mile, top 100 OA of 10000+ finishers). Not the original goal, but I’m completely satisfied with it.
Post-race, I addressed the growing need to use the restroom that had been giving me some cramping throughout the race then headed back to the chute to watch my dad, sister, wife’s friend, mom, and aunt all come in. The rainy weather had cleared, so it was enjoyable to hang out at the finish for a bit.
All told, it was a successful kick-off to the season. No more official races for another month, then tri-season kicks in for real on June 7th. In the meantime, I need to get some long rides and runs in to prep for this August IM.
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