VT Dad’s fight vs. inertia & flab

It was ~52F, 11C, with steady tail wind for today’s 8.5 mile race.  I chose to wear shorts, a short sleeve t shirt, hat, and gloves.  I made a perfect choice for my clothing.  I warmed up within the first quarter mile, and took off my gloves, about half way through the race.  The steady tail wind helped everyone run a bit faster today.  

I tried to stay relaxed at the start, I clocked an 8:17 for my first mile.  After that I tried to pick up the pace, passing a few people each mile during miles 2-6.  One girl that I passed began to use me to set her pace, as she sat on my shoulder.  This was a course that gained 300 feet of elevation throughout the race.  My pace was uneven, averaging 7:50s for the flatter miles, and 8:30s for the uphill miles.  Throughout miles 2-7 the girl was always on my shoulder, whenever she surged, I was able to match her surge.  Together we picked off a dozen runners.  I reached mile seven in 57:44.  If I could maintain 8 minute miles, I’d finish sub70 minutes.  With about a mile to go, she surged, and I couldn’t respond.  I kept chugging along, but I was no longer running fluidly.  I finished in 1:10:47, 2:08 faster than I did in last year’s race.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 26th, 2009 at 11:24 am and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.