I tried not to let this throw me off and went out to run anyway. I arrived at Kapiolani Park and was excited to see how many people turned out for this little low key run on Thanksgiving morning! Some peeps were dressed up in costumes and I saw many familiar faces. When it was time to predict my time on my popsicle stick I wrote 1:37.41. I came up with this number by looking at my previous times for similar length races and with the help of the mcmillan calculator:
http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/calculator
After using the bathroom I met up with our favorite running couple Glenda and Clyde then enjoyed the opening festivities, including a fabulous a capella song created just for this Turkey Trot race.
The race was put on by the Honolulu Marathon Clinic which is the group we've trained with for the marathon. More info about this wonderful group here:
honolulumarathonclinic.org
The premise of this non-race event is that the mistakes you make in your first 10 miles of a marathon haunt you in the last 16. Thus, running at your pace without the aid (maybe crutch, maybe devil on your shoulder) of gps watches/timers, etc is stressed.
I very rarely run without my Garmin or Runkeeper, and in fact I put my watch on when I was getting ready this morning then remembered that I wasn't supposed to use it!!! Since I have been working and training hard and making vast improvement each week I wasn't really sure what my pace would be and with the marathon two weeks away I am not really sure what pace I should be running. So when the cannon went off (and I screamed) I took off running just trying to be in sync with my body.
It was weird not knowing my pace but since the route was familiar I knew what mileage I was at at pretty much the entire race. It was nice to be running on my marathon route yet again and to have more practice on the Diamond Head hills. Being that I just ran my Half Marathon here a few days ago I felt pretty confident. I was also happy that the heaviness from the Half that I felt in my legs in my last few runs seemed to have disappeared. By mid race, looking around I saw many of the same faces that I usually run with at all of the other races and I knew I must've been close to the pace I had put down (9:42). When we were about 3 miles out near Kahala Beach Park I got to talking with the other runners and they all said that they put down their times in the 1:35-1:38 range. Again it was a good validation for my prediction.
At Triangle Park, the two mile to finish line mark I mentally prepared for the hill. In a "real" race this is where I would begin to increase pace. I reminded myself that the idea was to stay even and in tempo and I pulled back. At the base of the hill I put it into gear and ran hard. Once at the top I cruised down nice and steady and headed to Kapiolani Park. As I made the turn toward the Finish Line I told myself to hang on and take it easy. At this point I honestly wasn't sure if I was ahead or behind. As I passed the line and handed my popsicle stick to a volunteer I heard that my time was 1:35.45. I was excited at my great time (9:34 pace) and thought it was pretty cool to be only 2 minutes off!! However, when I talked to other friends I was stunned to learn that Korwin was only 1 second off and Nikki only 2 seconds off. CRAZY!!!!!
All in all I was pretty happy with the way I ran today. I didn't run at race pace and was easily able to sustain a 9:34 pace for double digits. It does put a kink in my Marathon strategy and I will have to really think things through.
This was a wonderful way to spend Thanksgiving. I was able to eat all day with no guilt, get my exercise out of the way nice and early, and be with people who shared my love of running! Same time same place 2013!!!
No comments:
Post a Comment