Today was my first race of the year. Until today, I hadn't run a race since Thanksgiving of last year in Indianapolis. I have a particular fondness for the Run for the Parks because it was this run that first really spawned my interest in running races two years ago. In the spring of 2006 I had been running more than I ever had before. Sara saw an ad in the subway for this race and asked if I wanted to try, so I did. This was my first experience with an NYRR race or any race at all for that matter. I trained hard for that race because I was unsure how to run a race, or what to expect. My only goal for that year was to run at an 8:30 pace or so. I ended up running my best race ever that year, 30:40 for 4 miles, a 7:40 min/mile pace. Two years later, I was again nervous. I haven't run a race in a while, my running has been sporadic at best lately, my legs were still pretty sore, and my watch has been on the fritz. Nevertheless, I ran my second best race ever today, running 31:11 for the race, a pace of 7:47 min/mile. The other great thing is that I'm confident that if my legs weren't so sore, I would have been able to beat my personal best of 7:40. My breathing today was not terribly labored and it was mostly my legs that [again] were the limiting factor in my pace. I felt strong coming into the last couple of hundred yards, and I felt good going up hills today.
My 3rd mile is always the slowest in these races, so one thing that I know I need to work on is more consistent pacing. My watch farted about mid-way through the first mile today, unexpectedly resetting, so I only had a mile by mile breakdown for the last three miles on my watch. To make it even harder, there was no clock at the starting line to tell me when I crossed the start (starting my race time) which means that when I got the first mile and saw the clock reading 8:38, I didn't know how close that was. It was only once I got home and check my official results that I could figure out that my first mile ended up being 7:43. The next three miles were 7:43, 8:07, and 7:36 respectively. I ended up placing 1503 in a race of 5863 people and 1246 out of 3054 men in the race. I felt really good today and am pretty psyched about how well I ran.
This race brings my week's mileage up to 12.5, the best so far this year. I'm hoping that I can find time to get 14-15 miles in next week. Increasing my mileage will be hard until tennis is over, but it's important. Who ever said that training for a marathon would be easy? I'm watching a fascinating NOVA special on people training for marathons and I'm finding it very cool, but I'm reminded what a task I still have ahead of me! Today, however, I really felt great about my run and for the first time could really see myself running a marathon.
After the race today, I went the Museum of Natural History for the first time since my mom got me a membership for my birthday (Thanks mom!) and then went to lunch with Asher and Diana! It was a good weekend, and I'm going to take tomorrow off!!
No comments:
Post a Comment