What hurricane?

Kyle is still on his way and was not really a factor in today's race so I'm going to have to come up with some other good excuses. How about hills, humidity and tired legs (though the mind was willing)? Time of 1:38:04 (7:26/mile) 3/30 in M50-59 and 30/352 in event. The full results are here.

I can't really complain to much about this race result as I haven't raced much this summer, done very little speed work, have had sub-optimal running in recent weeks and just finished up last week with 60 miles (including a hard 14 miles on Thurs).

Man! the excuses just keep coming...

The race: and this will be short. Stayed at my sister's in Saint John overnight and was up at 630 for a light breakfast with very strong coffee that was great for getting all systems booted up. I then drove down with my brother-in-law to his office only a block from the start line with our private bathroom and place to get geared up. We did a very easy 1/2 mile warmup followed by easy stretches as we waited for the start at 8am, moving up close to the front to avoid the slower runners. Before we knew it the cannon went off and so were we, though it was a little faster than I should have with the 1st 2 miles in 7:02 and 7:00 weaving through the crowd. This would come back to haunt me big time although these miles were mostly downhill.

In most races my modus operandi (MO) has been to go out at a reasonable pace for me and then hold it and not be passed very much after the 1st mile or so. Not today! Many of those folks that I zoomed by in mile 1-2 came back to get my in miles 6-7-8 and even in 10-11 (ouch), but at least not 12-13.1 You can see this slowing in my pace ( blue line above) if you look at the 8mph line which is also 7:30/mile and my hoped for marathon pace in PEI. After about mile 6 it was a real struggle to hold this pace as one runner after another took me down with very little resistance. Oh, I'd speed up and try to hold on for a minute or so but the legs were not giving me what I was asking for today. It was very hard with all the hills (green line) to get into a nice rhythm and so I resorted to alot of counting, saying "just one more mile to go" for the 2nd half of this race. The finish was nice with a nice downhill section for a good last mile but at this point I was just glad to have it over with.

So that's it and it can't be changed or improved now. I ran as hard as I think I was capable of today and will move on to a nice 3 week taper for PEI now. There are no more races planned until then and not that much from Pfitzinger in the way of hard efforts either so all I can really do is rest and scheme about my racing plan. Have a great week!