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Week 234
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Greetings, 50+ers! I hope that you've had an enjoyable Thanksgiving weekend. Ours was a quiet one, no family, and even our daughter went with her boyfriend to Florida to visit his family. Would seem like an ideal time to log some miles, but alas it wasn't to be. Here's yet another anemic week for me; might be time for a reboot:
Sun: off
Mon: 4.1 easyish (7:26 pace)
Tue: 4.1 w/1,0.7,0.5 hard (with breaks)
Wed: off
Thur: 4.5 w/5k race 19:35 (6:20,6:10,6:30,:35)
Fri: off (yardwork)
Sat: off (sore)
Sunday was busy with packet pickup (plus other commitments), I did get short runs in Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday's run was meant to get the turnover going. After a mile warm-up, I ran a hard mile (6:22), stopped for about 30-40s, then 0.7 miles (5:58 pace), again a short 30-40s break, then finally 0.5 miles (5:54 pace) followed by another minute or so break before jogging home. Skipped Wednesday (again because of too many commitments); and raced Thursday (report below). With steady rain in the forecast from Saturday onwards, Friday was a yardwork day (we'll call it cross-training) and I spent 5 hours raking leaves, etc.. By the end, my arms were pretty spent, my core had been challenged, and my hip started acting up. I had fully intended to go for a good run Saturday, but I've learned the hard way that after I've done something out of the ordinary that causes lingering soreness, it's best to hold off running for a bit; I've pulled muscles in the past. And although it's no excuse, I've also picked up a nasty head cold.
OK, so race report. The Thoroughbred Classic is our big local Thanksgiving Day race (it's the one I directed last year; THANK GOD someone else was willing to take over!) Even at 2600 registrants it's still pretty local (and out-of-town families), so it doesn't get many big guns (this year, fewer than usual), but the competition is decent enough for us age-groupers. Race is at 9:00, but I arrived at the race venue at 5:30 in the morning to help set up. We had very nice high-40's conditions for the start of the race, I lined myself up about 4 rows from the front. When the gun went off, I tried my best to hold back and just go with the flow. We strung out pretty quickly and settled into our race paces. The first mile has a net uphill (about 31 ft) as we head out from the horse stables to the main road. We doubled back to the mile mark hitting it right at 6:20, which was just where I wanted it to be. Though the second mile has a net downhill (same 31 ft), we first have to go up a decent hill up around the Keene Barn, then down a long downgrade that loops back to the start. By this point, I'd keyed in on a couple of runners and just tried to keep even (or slowly catch) them. We went by the 2-mile mark right at 12:30, so things were looking good and the same runners were still in my cross-hairs. The third mile had another decent hill to climb, but first we go back out the main road a bit. This ended up costing us some time as there was a sudden pickup of the wind to 15-20 mph that really slowed everyone down! The only saving grace was that the wind would be at our back during the final climb up to the gatehouse (my Garmin says my pace briefly dropped to 7:10 during the ascent.) By the time we reached the pinnacle, I had caught a couple of the runners I was keying on, and I knew that the last 0.35 miles to the chute was all downhill. So I really started to push it and caught another runner (my Garmin says my pace for the last 1/3 of a mile was 5:40.) I knew before the start of the race that I could be no better than second in the 50+, as there was a 58 year-old guy who has always been about a minute faster than me (and he was again this day at 18:43) at the race. Another guy who'd just turned 51 recently came in at 19:16, so I ended up 3rd of the Grandmasters; 41st over all. I was fully spent at the finish, so I know that I'd given it all I had, which is all I can ask for. If there is a silver lining, it's that with the light training the past few weeks, I'm actually up a few pounds to 167-168, which to me means that aerobically I'm doing OK. I ran my best back 5 years ago at 156-157, so if I can just manage to control my eating and/or get my mileage back up, I think I should be able to get back to the mid-18's. That should be my focus for the New Year to come.
Welcome, Ironside! Hope to hear more about your recovery from the Achilles' issue. You'll find some experience with that on this thread.
After reading Tony's post, I peaked in on the results from Portland, and wow the 50+ at Club XC Nationals is going to be tough! Wishing all the best to you guys and gals getting ready for this event!
Props to your son, SCgal! Very nice HM debut, indeed!
OK, that's all I've got. Any other Turkey Trots to report?
All the Best!