Mad, mad mission: Toot toot!

January 7, 2007

Toot toot!

That's the sound of my own horn you're hearing. Here are my online results for the 20miler this morning, for which my job was to run 3:45 marathon pace (or 8:34/mile):

overall pace: 8:32
pace at:
5K: 8:33
10K: 8:34
15K: 8:32
20K: 8:33
30K: 8:34

I think that the splits must be calculated on gun time and the overall calculated on chip time, 'cuz those splits don't average to an 8:32 pace unless I hauled ass in the last 1.6 and I didn't. In fact, that was uphill into the wind.

Because the online splits are based on gun time they make it look like I did better than I actually did, but in the end I was "only" 2 seconds per mile off AND I was nice and steady through the whole thing. All I can say is ... SHWEW! I really started to fret about it yesterday afternoon. Andy has been injured and our friend Pierre has been sick, so I was the lone 3:45 pacer, which may not seem that scary, except that I've been committed to this all along thinking that I'd be running with guys who have run this pace group for multiple years AND the first year they did it they were the most accurate of all the pacers.

I actually felt more *helpful* during the Rogue practice run that we did a few weeks ago than I did this morning. Today I had a group at about mile 5, but we had a few sloppy get-your-own water stops that broke everyone up. Most of them ended up ahead of me, and I just stuck to my guns and figured we'd all eventually hook back up again, but we didn't. I had one woman and one guy with me through a large portion of the race, but I couldn't pull them in on that stretch uphill into the wind.

I wore my Distance Challenge Series yellow jersey in this the one and only race that I'll be able to wear it. I'll likely slip more than a few places when the results are tallied (which I will obsessively calculate after I write this, even though I know that I planned all along to pace this race and the marathon - how vain is that?)

After the race I noticed that I still have a hack. What's up with that? I guess antibiotics weren't the solution. I generally get a hack after races, but I certainly wasn't racing today, and never got winded.

Next up, the 3M half marathon. Think I can get into racing shape in two weeks? Bah.

Posted by jenandmats at January 7, 2007 4:01 PM

Comments

Strong work on the pacing. I always admire people who can hold a steady pace like that. It's something I'm terrible at.

Posted by: hokgardner at January 7, 2007 9:19 PM

dim, dom, dome... here comes running, the metronome... good stuff... go J&M, GO!

Posted by: corrado giambalvo at January 8, 2007 8:59 AM

Hello? Anyone in here?

(I like to be the official remind-Jen-to-post annoying commenter. I hope you're not actually annoyed.)

Posted by: Meghan at January 14, 2007 9:31 PM