Sunday Sundae

This race course as I mentioned in the previous post is tough. My goal for this race as with all races is to do better than last year. Well this was the 1st race that I did not improve my time on in the last couple of years. I was actually about 30 seconds slower this year. The week leading up to the race I had to many excuses not to train. Notice I did not say reasons, but excuses. Normally I hate excuses they go against everything I believe in. But the fact of the matter is my motivation is waining and getting out the door just did not happen. So one would think that I was well rested for the race, and I was. But I still just felt kind of bla. A 10 mile race on some tough hills just did not sound like much fun and it really wasn't. Anyway I started out running with a girl that lives down the lake from me who I ran the course with a few weeks ago. She and I had the same pace goal, 7 min/mi. The 1st 2 miles is nice and flat then comes the steep downhill that is about 1/4 mile long. My goal was to have us right on pace when we got to the bottom of that hill. I nailed it almost perfectly. The next 5 miles are mostly flat with couple little hills. But at about 7 3/4 miles you start a climb that last until just over the 9 mile mark. The last 3/4 is pretty steep. Then it is flat to the finish. So back at about the 4mile mark of the race Kerrie, the girl I was running with, pulled away from me. She did not speed up I had slowed down. I felt like I was in survival mode already. I was really trying to stay focused because if I didn't I would began to slow down. Anyway I putted along trying to muster the motivation to pick up the pace but legs were having no part of it. When I got to the 8 mile mark I was right at 58 min. So I new with the big hill still to come I was going to have a tough time beating last years time. And as I started up the hill my legs felt like they had no spring at all. At the top of the hill some guy passed me that looked like he was race walking, that was it. I had to pick it up. I started calling myself all kinds of names, making promises to myself I knew I wouldn't keep. I pulled out all the psychobabble bullshit I could think of to try to get my ass moving a little faster. Then I looked at my gadget and saw I had 3/4 of a mile to go. "Dude it's 3 laps, you've been doing those at 6:30 pace". Finally I started to speed up. When I rounded the last corner for the finish I could hear footsteps and that was the push I needed. I was able to put the hammer down for the last 800 I passed about 5 people. And when I ran through the shoot a voice behind me said "man I tried to get you but I couldn't". I turned around and shook his hand, he was about 25 yo, and I said " I heard you coming thanks for the push".
We hung around for the awards because they usually give away some good stuff. And to my surprise they called my name as 3rd place in my division.Wow! I even got a little coffee cup for my trouble. My friend BOB got 2nd in his division. And the girl I started the race with got 1st in her division and by the way ran 1:10 flat with no gadget, now that is knowing your pace. The Hobbit set a PR by 5 sec. but the 45-50 yo group is pretty tough.
The next day they had the official times posted and much to my dismay I actually did not get 3rd. They must have missed someone or had someone in the wrong division but I actually got 4th. So I will give up my coffee cup.Damn! My time was 1:14:28
The next race is the big one Portland Marathon on October 5th, my 45th birthday. I need to run 3:30 to qualify for Boston. Wish me luck I think I'll need it.