Post Race Thoughts
First, I want to say a very hearty “Thank you!” to everyone who commented either before or after my race on Sunday. You guys really are the best. I want to take special care to thank Jeff, whose good luck sign was a very welcome surprise!
I’m generally doing well, considering that yesterday’s race was the furthest that I’ve ever ran in one go. Last year’s marathon training was the Galloway-inspired run/walk method and let me tell you, I like this a lot better. Still, that means that I get another season of “furthest” PRs to log, and this was one of them.
There is one nagging sore spot on the back of my left heel. I’m hoping that its a mild surface shoe-rub issue … although that will still need to be dealt with. There’s no visible mark, and it doesn’t hurt when I flex my foot in various directions, but it feels tender when I walk with a shoe on. I really don’t need this to be an achillies anything, and I truly don’t think its all that important, but its something to keep an eye on - and some periodic ice on - anyway. My ITB is feeling just fine.
I’m still grinning about my performance on the course, even as I try to find ways in which it could be improved. The last 3.11 miles (slightly more than a 5k) came in at 24:44, another unofficial PR. Is it really going to be 6 more weeks before the next good opportunity to set it for real? Heck, my last 6.1 miles were done in 49:37 and my 10k PR (admittedly 1/10 of a mile longer) is 51:39, so I think that counts as an unofficial 10k PR as well.
The plan for this week is to take it fairly easy. No running today, and I’ll go out tomorrow to try to get seven easy, easy miles down. I may do the same on Wednesday, or may do fewer miles and some elliptical work, I’m not sure which. The main goal here is recovery and mitigation of any potential injuries I might have aggrevated yesterday morning.
Either way, Thursday morning I will celebrate the one year anniversary of “serious” (ie: not just trying to finish) racing, when I see how far down I can stomp my 45:43 (9:09 pace) 5 mile time at the Turkey Trot. Considering that the last five miles of the half went by in 40:23, I’m thinking that somewhere between a 7:30-7:45 pace should be quite reachable. Of course, that assumes that the two inches per hour of rain we’ve been getting lately holds off for the race…
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Nov 22nd 2004
2:04 PM
hehe!
the sign was fun to make. smsmh had fun trying to figure out what the heck it was going to say. the sign was my idea, the kick was hers =)
congratulations again on a well run race and good luck on the turkey trot on thursday!
Nov 22nd 2004
6:45 PM
Richard, looking at your splits, I bet your 10-mile PR was in there too. Good job again. It really looks like you’ve got the correct pacing and negative splits figured out for these races. I’ve still got some work to do in that department.
Nov 22nd 2004
7:01 PM
Yeah, considering that my PR 13.11 was only 20:47 behind my PR for 10.0, I think that you’re probably correct. In fact, I’d need to have 3.11 miles at a 6:41 pace to equal that out - which didn’t happen - so I PRd no matter what 10 mile distance you want to measure. Huh.
I just got back from RunTex and chatted a little with Bill Stone. He thinks that my injury is probably a mild hamstring inflammation, and gave me some insole advice to mitigate it. I’ll have to see how it goes. I’d hate to think about not running on Thursday, but I’d really hate having to walk the 20K in two weeks a whole lot more.
Nov 22nd 2004
7:53 PM
Yeah, no kidding. Do you know if they still do the free injury screening at RunTex on Fridays? I found it pretty helpful when I was all messed up a couple years ago.