It was a downpour all night long and still when I woke up at 5am to get ready for the race, but right about the time I was getting parked, the rain stopped and the conditions were perfect for running, cloudy and cool. In years past I would have had pasta before a race, tapered a bit the days before, and gotten plenty of sleep, but times have changed. We had dinner with friends the night before which was ginger-miso salmon and rice and I got to bed about 11pm, but as it turned out salmon may be a pretty good pre-run meal because my stomach and legs felt great the whole race. My goal was to run under a 1:40 half (7:30-7:40 pace) after running a 1:41 at the Pig back in May. When the race started I went out about 7:05 pace, which I knew may be faster then I could hold for the whole race, but I was feeling good and decided to see how long I could hold the pace. I pretty much held the pace until mile 10 when I was starting to feel my legs, but I knew I only had 5K to go and held on to a 7:20 pace finishing down the runway in 1:34 (7:13 pace), race day magic is amazing!Thursday afternoon was our semi-annual 5K at work, there is no better way to spend an afternoon then getting outside of the office to run a 5k with your co-workers. I went out fast to keep up with a girl who usually wins, hung behind her for most of the race but was never able to catch her and finished ~20:40. A good fast weekday effort and probably still a little tired from the weekend half.
To finish it off, today was my 20 mile run, first in 2 years since Ironman Wisconsin. There is nothing like the weight of a looming 20 mile run, there is just something about that distance that feels like a weight over my head until I get out and do it. 18 miles no problem, but 20 miles is mentally tough knowing I am going to be out running for nearly 3 hours. To top it off I've really been struggling to get sleep these past few weeks. When our daughter was sick I gave into feeding her when she woke up at 4:30am and now she's gotten into the habit of waking up early and not being able to go back to sleep. So on 5 hours of sleep 20 miles seemed even more daunting. I set out for my run this morning with my Ipod and knocked out the miles on my own, trying to hold around 8 min/mile, sometimes picking it up and slowing down when needed to keep going. I broke the run into 6 sections, just telling myself to get through that portion of the run and made it through feeling strong but also worn out when I got home. Time to taper!
