The morning dawned bright and clear
despite the intensities of last night's festivities,
I was ready to run the fastest half of my career
as it tends to go with my proclivities.
Earlier this week, somewhat on a whim, I decided to do Evergreen Trail Run's Lake Sammamish Half Marathon. The course starts out at Lake Sammamish State Park, at the south end of the lake and ends at Marymoor Park at the north end of the lake. Uber flat and uber fast. This is the second year of the event and looks like it is fast becoming a very popular race, congrats to Roger Michel and his crew for a great race.
My strategy was pretty simple, start out at around 7:00 min/mile pace and see what happens. I told myself that it would be really tactically smart to not start at the very front, rather start a little further back and reel in a few people. Going into the race, I really wanted to beat my PR and go under 1:27, but I knew that I wasn't in the same kind of shape as at Black Diamond, where I had set the prior PR.
My plan was to take the first 2 miles a bit easier and then pick it up gradually over the course of the race. You can see my HR and pace data here. Thanks to The Balanced Athlete, I know know my AeT (aerobic threshold) and was careful to keep my HR under AeT for the first 6 miles or so, to avoid fading in the second half. You can see that my HR steadily climbs for the entire race while my pace wavers a bit. I consider a successful endurance race on in which I steadily build my effort, so I call this one a success!
Uhhh okay now for the emotional side of things. This race was absolutely awesome!! I had a great song in my head:
As I sat in the car I started to channel a bit of angry energy and thought 'hmmm maybe I could use this in the race'. I've done it before, it works, up to a point, but experience has taught me that too much emotion in a race uses up just as much energy as a crappy stride. So I just tried to be present for the whole race and stay mentally positive by keeping tabs on which way my thoughts were heading--and quickly turning them around when they started going you-know-where.
I passed a few people and ended up in 4th place OA, 1st place AG. The top 3 runners got gift certificates for a basket of vegetables--so maybe if I had known that I would have picked up that extra 10 seconds and got 3rd! Results are here. 1:26:33, average pace 6:36.
Maybe my favorite part of a race is afterwards when you get to see lots of peeps that you know, talk, revel in the post-race high, snack on some delicious food (there was PIZZA at the finish line!!!) and catch up. There is SUCH a good vibe at a finish line, I love it.
Well now I've got some dogs to babysit. Have a great weekend!
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