Despite having my iPhone stolen at the event, everything else about the cross country relay last night was a success. I really didn’t know how I’d feel after my morning 10-miler, but it turns out that I had enough “go” left in my legs for two more miles. Juuuust enough.
I showed up early to find my team. I knew Jen but had never met Margo or Randi. I’d requested the second leg, which would allow me to get photos of the start and of the early finishers. Randi went first, Margo went third, and Jen brought it home.
My best-case goal time was 21:00, or 10:30 pace, but I told my team to realistically expect me around 22:00. Last year I ran it in 21:06 and killed myself for that pace — I pushed so hard last year that I had little recollection of the course itself other than I was tired the whole time. As such, I forgot that the first mile is deceptively flat, and the last half mile is the hardest part of the whole race!
I remember going out too fast last year, so I made a concerted effort to take the big hill at the start easier this year. I didn’t want to be out of breath after a tenth of a mile. That plan worked ok, but as soon as I started running, my mouth was immediately dry. “This is not good,” I thought, “and I’ve been drinking water all day!” The sun had been out all day and it had really heated things up compared to the morning’s coolness.
I had decided prior to the start that though I’d be wearing my Garmin, I would not look at it. I didn’t want to know how fast or slow I was going. I didn’t want to know what my heart rate was (couldn’t have read that anyway, since I realized when I got to the park that I’d forgotten the chest strap). I just wanted to run and see what happened.
My Garmin lost signal a few times and measured about a tenth of a mile long (2.1 miles, while I’m confident that the course is an even 2 miles). My splits are a little wonky because of that, because I always forget to turn off the auto-lap feature for races.
The first mile is relatively flat and runs mainly along Memorial Drive with one dive to go under the Waugh bridge. My Garmin beeped about 200 feet before the mile marker, and though I didn’t look at the time, it turns out that 9:25 had passed. Holy crap, that was fast, no wonder I was breathing so hard. Even with the extra bit to the real mile marker, my first mile was right at 10:00. This was confirmed when I noticed that June was about 30 feet ahead of me on the course. She definitely hadn’t been there when I started, which meant that I’d caught up to her. That meant I’d been going fast, because June has gotten faster than me.
I settled in about 10 seconds behind June and decided that I’d let her pace me back to the handoff, but after a couple minutes, she started to walk. “June, don’t walk, you’re my pacer!” I called as I jogged past. I knew she had to be feeling the effects of her morning 10-miler. I decided to keep going but my own 10-miler caught up to me shortly and I took a quick walk break myself. Like I said, I forgot that the last half mile is the hardest part of the course, and it definitely took its toll. I walked the final couple uphill segments, and kept glancing over my shoulder, sure that June was about to pass me again.
She never did, but it turns out she was about 5 seconds behind me the whole time. With maybe a tenth of a mile to go, I finally looked at my watch for the first time and saw 19:something. “Score!” I thought. I ran it in for a time of 20:59 — 1 second off my best-case goal time.
I was happy with my result, but geez, I did not feel good for about 15 minutes after I finished. The GI issues that popped up at the end of the morning long run came back even worse. I’ve got to figure out what’s going on there. After that passed, I was fine. I did get some more photos of finishing teams and got to see more friends.
Overall it was a fun race with a great atmosphere and unique course, and I look forward to doing it again next year.