Road Racing & Training Thread Week Ending 09/10/2017

That Gator finish was nuts.

Race day, beer, wine, steak, wine, wife had last 20 miler before Chicago. Strong day for the Smoove household.

And RRR, he was wondering what part of Arkansas. (B'ville).

Snap another shot of yourself, RRR. It will put a smile on my face.

dammit Smoove way to bust my cloak of secrecy! I had a busy day. I ran, made veggie burgers for the gf, we drank a lot of old mil light (it's like water), and I'm gonna make some pizza rolls. Tough day but hey. Someone has to do it

Quick result:

Tucson 10k: 37:20, 6th overall, 1st master. The downhill was not as nice as I expected and I pretty much just recovered on those after pushing the uphill. Plan was 6:30s going up (125' gain each of first two miles) but ended up 6:00/6:20 going off effort. But I was breathing very hard and feeling lactic acid buildup at the top of the hill. I opened up a little coming down but the back side was a lot more rolling hills with significant ups and downs. One of the guys I passed in the last 2 miles at the 8-miler two weeks ago was trading positions with me on every up (he would pass) and every down (I would pass) but he opened up a gap at 4miles and I just let him go, still hurting, biding my time. There was a turn at the 5-mile and I glanced back to see who was back there, guessed there were a couple guys 30s back. Mentally accepted that I could mail it in a d they wouldn't catch me but kept my eye on the runner 20 meters ahead, who had never really dropped me. There were a couple little hills before a downhill .2 to the finish. Got to the top of the last hill and blasted down, passing 6th place and sprinting into the finish. Clock time was 37:20. Splits were 5:59, 6:11, 6:08, 5:59, 5:55, 6:10, ? For last .2. Happy with overall effort. I kind of wonder if I could have picked up more time on the back half if I hadn't pushed the front but I did what I wanted to do, which was put myself in the hurt zone early and see what happens. Also got to socialize with a lot of runners, including my "rival" master who keeps telling me he's catching me at the ends of these races. He was 20 or 30 seconds back and it turns out we ran against each other in high school. Good times. Race was won in 30:59 by a former CAC and Florida State runner from Zambia, plus we now have two new "transfers" from Flagstaff running in the 32:xx range. Let's make it faster, Tucson.

Nice run! Way to stay focused on catching someone and not just mailing in the finish.

Nice race team 1! What was the weather like?

Interesting that the winner was from Zambia. I worked there for four years and ran with a lot of local guys. Although Zambia is not really known for distance running like some of the East African countries, I think there is potential there. Guys there are thin, humble and hard working and there is great running weather. Guys I knew were fast but didn't have any proper training, shoes, etc. One old guy I knew in his 50s( looked like 70 in western standardS) was a house servant, made about 100 dollars a month, but would run 15-20 miles every day hard. He did well in marathons and halfs, but would have been a really great masters runner with a bit more nutrition and coaching.

Anyway, great race!

Thanks, martalus. It was a bit warm (75, dew point 60).. I was pretty sweaty. Finally cooling off some around here but it's still not great racing weather.