This is about the worst I’ve felt in ages after such a short race. (10K) My calves ache, and I feel just terrible. Weak. But I guess it means I gave it my all.
I ran down one runner, this guy who made an easy target clad in just shorts and a red T-shirt. Early on in the race we passed each other a couple times. I’d pull away on the downhills and he’d catch me on the uphills. Then I started to cramp a little and let him go. He was probably 100 feet ahead of me at one point. I was still passing people in the last two miles, but wasn’t really gaining on this guy. Then with half a mile left it seemed like I was. The gap narrowed to about 40 feet … 30 … 20. I tried playing mind games with myself. I told myself our place might affect team scoring. Under my breath I chanted, “Single-minded. Determination.” We passed the six mile mark. I was about 10 feet behind him with the final turn in sight. And I might not have caught him … except these two Greater New York runners started to pass me.
“Go for broke, Rose,” I told myself. “Go for broke.”
I did, praying that the finish line wasn’t too far from the final turn. Thankfully, it wasn’t. One of the two Greater NY runners did slip past me, but I beat the other one along with the guy in red.
And it was in fact a PR, by a fairly significant 34 seconds. A 41:23 chip, 41:57 clock … 6:40 pace, good for 318 out of 4,085 runners, and 275 of the 2,217 men. (Not good enough to score for my new team, though).
I only took a split at mile 3, that was 20:04, or a 6:41 pace … so I guess I managed negative splits. The first mile is the Harlem Hill, though.
I do feel quite good about this, despite feeling so bad physically. Maybe I’m just hungry … I did have French toast at that blogger brunch thing afterwards, but there wasn’t very much toast!
P.S.: Chelle mentioned something after the race about how I had set a PR while wearing my running jacket. I had never thought that it might slow one down, but she thinks it definitely does. Huh.
i see you discovered the “PR zone” 😉
nice job. placing as high as you did in a points race is pretty damn good. i knew we were gonna have quite a few of our guys who regularly go under 40 minutes out running today.
it’s funny what you said to yourself about place affecting team scoring…that’s kinda like something toby always says to us-even if we don’t “score,” we may be pushing another club’s runners a place back or something.
Thanks. How does that work, scoring-wise? I don’t understand. That other guy I was chasing was the third-place finisher for his club, though.
well-as the standings depend on the sum of the places of 5 scoring members (or 3, in the masters and veterans divisions)
so say hypothetically, club A had a sum of 895 and finished third, and club B had a sum of 896 and finished fourth. and you pushed club B’s 3rd-place scorer 1 place back, which in this case may have been the difference between placing 3rd and 4th place. (i dont think it was that close between any of the clubs this time though…)
am i making sense? 🙂
Oh, okay. Gotchya.
Sounds like your basic cross country scoring formula.
Nice work on the PR, Derek. I also enjoyed going through the threads of SantaCon. I would expect our sheriff’s office would call out a SWAT team for such behavior. I just love the red state southern attitude. Blech.
Congrats on the nice race today and PR…even if I do know who the “guy in red” is;0) Anyway, had a good time at the bloggers brunch….thanks for helping to organize!
well, i didn’t want to be like, i don’t know, in your face about it. obviously a lot of people beat me. But it does definitely help to have a worthy opponent to race against.
awesome job! congrats!
yes, thanks for organizing today. it was fun.
good race too. blazing time as far as I’m concerned.