Training in Montana

3 easy miles, 4 tomorrow, then 2 on Friday. Taper hell! Actually kind of excited about it. After Saturday's 8 miler I went to football games all day (9:00-5:30) and my left calf was killing me the last 5 hours. Just a throbbing dull ache on the left side of the calf. Went to some friends house after pizza and put an ice pack on the leg and downed 800 mg vitamin I and the throbbing went away. I wasn't worried about it, but man did it hurt, and I had no medicine or ice to deal with it. 5 mornings and counting till M day.

Last run before flying to St. George. No watch, so not sure of speed but felt good. Legs are goofy and doing weird things again, but thanks to Allie's advice I'm not worrying about it and just telling my body to go for it - let out all the craziness so Saturday my legs will be ready. Worried slightly about my right shoulder as I forget that it sometimes yells & screams during long runs. I'm sure it will scream on Saturday, but hopefully it will subside after I let it know that I care. Because I do.

Now that I'm back home I did a new race report. My apologies to whomever reads it. :)

Woke up at 3:30 am, changed and headed down to the bus drop off. I took water, bagels, and Clif bars with me to eat on the bus and at the start. Got to the start at 4:30 and walked to the far North bonfires as those were the first ones burning. Laid around and listened to some conversations, then did some business at the POPs. As it got closer to 6:45 I got in line one more time, but realized that I wouldn’t make it so I got my bag together and headed down to the drop off. Put my bag away and searched for the 3:35 pace balloon. I found it, but there was a crush of people between me and the pacer so I thought I would stay where I was and find the pacer when the race started. That was mistake #1. Before the race started I lost the pacer balloon as he must have moved forward, and I never saw him again. After crossing the start line I ran pretty fast to try and catch up with the pacer, but after a bit of running in the 7’s and not seeing him I backed off, realizing that I probably wouldn’t catch him. It turns out that I was behind the 3:45 pacer as well as I caught up to him much later. Weeks before the race I created a SGM pace bracelet for 3:35, telling me exactly the pace I should hit for each mile based on elevation change and difficulty. Unfortunately I decided not to take that pace bracelet but instead took the Clif pace bracelet which was not SGM specific, and I knew it wasn’t realistic. So, mistake #2 was that I decided I’d run about an 8:30 pace for the first half, then book it downhill the second half and still hit my time. I’m not very good with running math on the fly. Really not good at it, plus didn’t take into account that I wouldn’t be able to run my pace the last few miles. Should’ve thought of that.

So, I chugged along, hitting around 8:30 for the first bit, then sped up with miles 6 & 7 into Veyo. That was really neat seeing the whole town come out to support us. Up Veyo hill I felt strong and passed a lot of people who I’d let go by on the first 5 miles, and I hit a 9:20 for mile 8 and a 9:32 for mile 9 including a pee break on a tree. The next few uphill miles were slower than I wanted, in the 8:40s, but once we got over the hill during mile 12 I started going faster, although it wasn’t as fast as I had planned. Mentally I thought I could hit 7:50s which would make up some good time but those miles were 8:18 and 8:14, which weren’t even on pace for a 3:35. Good downhills came after that and I hit paces in the low 7s and clicked onto a Marathon Maniac who was doing about 7:40 miles. I realized I couldn’t sustain that pace so I only ran in the 7s for a few miles, then hit another pee break at the 17 mile aid station. I felt pretty good for the next few miles, but my times were erratic. 8:23, 8:33, 7:51, 9:21. I knew I was in trouble when I was running downhill and hitting a 9:10 mile during mile 22. Just after that was one of the last uphills and I again felt strong and passed people, but at the top of that small hill I suddenly felt lightheaded and had to walk. The heat was hitting me. I wore my HR monitor and my HR was up way more than it should’ve been at the paces I was running. I was hoping to break 3:38 and with 4 miles to go I could’ve done that with an 8:00 pace but I realized that with the heat that was off the table, so now my goal was to finish as strong as I could. Saw my family at mile 23 and that was awesome. Mile 24 was okay and hit an 8:45, but mile 25 was a 10:00 as I walked quite a bit to keep my HR down. Mile 26 I picked it back up to an 8:55, then the last stretch I was able to get back to an 8:08 to finish. It was great being able to run solid down the chute and I got cheered on by a friend I made in Kansas City who now lives in Southern California and was cheering on his family. Loved that. I grabbed food in the recovery area and hung out there for a while. My gut bomb hit about 30 minutes after that, and then again while walking to the car. Thank goodness we parked near the labor & delivery hospital as I was able to duck in there and use the restroom. I’m glad the gut held out until after the race.

Overall, I’m pleased with the race, but a bit disappointed in how I ran the race. Next time I’ll go with Plan A and not second guess myself or try to do math on the run. But I’ll definitely be back for more.

My paces: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/118876781