So many thoughts on this race. Here’s what I posted on Strava for a quick overview. (If you don’t already follow me, use THIS link to follow me over there.)
When we first moved to Minnesota in July, I started thinking about what races I wanted to do, but I had my injured hamstring and then my glute, so I wasn’t sure when I would be able to my next race. By the time my glute healed, I looked into running the Twin Cities 10 Miler [because my sister (Kristy) was signed up for it], but it was already full. In passing, I causally mentioned wanting to run the TC 10 Miler to a brand who I am partnering with, and they (Lagoon Sleep) were able to hook me up with an entry!
Going into the race, I knew I wasn’t super fit after having to take about 2 months off for my hamstring and glute injury. I only had about 3 weeks to build up my fitness, and I know that’s not enough time to make too much progress, so I tried to not hold myself to too high of a standard for the race.
I drove up to the Twin Cities Friday night to stay with my sister, so I could make sure to get some good sleep (without the boys bugging me), and hopefully relax a little more. Kristy and I didn’t talk too much about our race strategy. I told her my A and B goal and she said she had instructions from her coach to start out at a 7:10 min/mi pace and run progressively faster. (Let’s just say she did a very poor job following directions. ha!)
Race morning, I got up at 4 a.m., made coffee, started to eat my pre-race food, took a shower, got ready, and then we left around 5:15 a.m. We drove to the metro transit and got on the light rail that took us right to the start. We got to the start just a few minutes after 6:00 a.m., and started our warm-up. We did a two mile warm-up and then waited in line to use the bathroom. By this time it was about 6:40 a.m., and the race started at 7 a.m., so we knew we needed to find the bag drop. It took use about 10 minutes to find the bag drop, so by this time we were scrambling and worried we may not make it to the start on time. We dropped our things, and then ran over to the A corral for our wave to start. Luckily there was an alley near our corral, so I did a few striders before the race started but not as much of a warm-up as I would have liked.
When the gun went off, I did my best to settle into a comfortably-hard pace, which was right around 6:30. Averaging 6:30s for the race was what I thought I was capable of, and I felt okay, so I settled into that pace. The first couple of miles I navigated a spot in the crowd of people and watched my footing on the roads to avoid the cracks because the stack height on those carbon-plated shoes does make them a little more tippy. (I ended up wearing the Saucony Endorphin Pro+ for the race.)
I was feeling good, but then mile two into mile three came with a long gradual climb. I worked on keeping my effort the same and tried to run my own race even though some people were passing me. I honestly had no idea how much climbing there was in the race until someone told me at the start. Oops! I’m not sure if it was better not to know or freak out a little when she said that knowing to expect them.
Miles 4 to 7 is another big, long climb until you flatten out until the finish. This is definitely when I started to feel my pace fade. Unfortunately were we live now in Southern Minnesota, and it is very flat, so I don’t get to practice running hills. In Anchorage it was nice because I had my choice between flat, rolling hills and steeper rolling hills. I did my best to stick to my friend Bree and Kristy, but by mile 5 they started to slip away from me.
The climbing ended at mile 7, and I did my best to use the flat and downhill portions to my advantage because that does seem to be where I do better, but I just couldn’t really get my legs to move muche. Since my injury, I do feel like my endurance took a hit, and I just didn’t have the long sustained hard effort endurance I had over the summer.
As I approached the finish line, there is a nice long gradual downhill into the finish chute (which you can see forever!), and I tried to catch my friend Bree, but I wasn’t able to do it. When I crossed the finish line, I was pretty spent, and the fact I am still sore four days later lets me know I ran hard.
The competition can be pretty strong in Anchorage, but the races here (especially those in Minneapolis) are on another level, so it was kind of strange for me to see I placed 43rd for the women. But then someone commented I was in the top 1% for women (out of 5400) and 8th in my age group (out of 1000), and that made me feel better.
Come to find out, my sister beat me by a minute. (We always have to have a friendly little competition with each other.) She has been training for CIM for a couple of months now, so she has more training under her belt, plus she is faster than me when she is consistently running. She is faster than she realizes. (But I will say I beat her in our age-graded times. Ha!)
I have a lot of work to do before CIM if I want to run another sub-3 marathon, so I definitely had a little bit of a fire lit under me this past weekend.
