Turkey Trot Race Report

I woke up this morning feeling a bit sore and not particularly fast--reminders of yesterday's 16-miler. The race started at 11 though, so there was plenty of time to loosen up. I spent about half an hour in the back yard doing spring forms and generally prancing around, and by the end of it the idea of running a speedy short-distance race had become conceivable again.

I got to the race site plenty early and registered, putting down 'GNRC' as my club name (turns out that was wrong, but it ended up not mattering). Bumped into Mike and then Meredith, which was a nice surprise since I don't think I've seen her at a race since the Gilio 5k. Eventually a bunch of the others trickled in--including Don and all 3 Jeffs--and we ended up making a pretty good club showing.

I accepted the customary "you have to beat Don!" reminder, but was actually thinking you grand prix leaders might have been SOL, since I didn't have a lot riding on this race, and no reasons not to experiment by going out hard and seeing what happened. I slipped on my Frees, having briefly toyed with the idea of racing in Vibrams. However, my last attempt at speed in those things resulted in a 74s quarter (supposed to be the first quarter of a mile!), followed by complete O2 debt -- I decided not to get fancy and stuck with shoes.

Eventually we queued up for the start and were cow-belled off. One thing immediately became clear: HFC had brought the guns. Two went out with the lead pack with a third trailing closely, and then me with HFC #4 and another guy 20 or 30 yards back. Most of the first mile is a shallow downhill and we clipped right along, passing the 1 mile mark in 5:26 or so, and more or less fulfilling my intention of going out hard. By the time we started the uphill in mile 2 I was blowing hard and needed to slow down, losing contact with my little group. Mile 2 passed in 11:24, meaning I slowed down practically to a 6 minute mile!

I was running alone at this point, but I could hear footsteps behind me. Halfway into mile 2, HFC #5 passed me, ushering in my one race regret: by this time I had gained back most of my wind, and I think I could have made him fight a bit harder for the place. We doubled back on the race course and it was nice to see all the other runners coming in the opposite direction. I think mile 3 passed in seventeen twenty-something.

As I rounded the turn to take the final hill to the finish I caught a glimpse over my shoulder of the lead female and another runner not far back. HFC #5 was ahead of me by a few hundred yards, but by this time our displacement was pretty much fixed. I was accelerating up the hill, and so was he. I had enough left for an iddy-bitty kick for the chute, and that was it.

Results: 13th overall, 3rd AG.
Time: 23:23 (PR!)

I was pretty happy with that, but still a bit sad that I didn't crack HFC's 5-man monolith. Train hard, you guys. I'll be looking forward to next year :-) Also, I won this excellent cup, full of candy!

(The candy is no longer with me, except on a molecular level).

See Mary? You doubted there would be swag!

Other random ruminations: the limiting factor in this race was definitely oxygen uptake. My muscles all felt really strong, newly enhanced calves especially so. While I should probably stick to worrying about pushing out my blood lactate threshold in anticipation of my marathon, it got me thinking about doing more speedwork: 5:20 mile intervals, maybe. Anything to leave me gasping at the end. I bet I could take 10s a mile off pretty easily.

Daily mileage:
Fr: 8.3
Saturday: 16 (ran to Needham and back. Good times)
Sunday: 2M Warmup + 4M race.

Marathon Training Week 4 mileage: 47.