Last weekend marked a bit of a milestone. As I’m a nerd and like to keep track of things, I know last Saturday marked my 100th race of my distance running “career” at an event in Strawberry Plains, TN. The run started at a grade school, I think and was basically a very rolling/hilly course through many horse farms. It was nice to be out in 50-ish degree weather through the countryside. Having smaller mountains as a backdrop didn’t hurt either!!
Because of the hills, I was good through 7 miles and struggled to the 11 mile mark before slowing considerably and walking quite a bit of those last 2 miles. At the finish I realized I had just completed my 100th event! While it’s not the 997th event as another gentleman was completing that day, I’m still amazed at the 20 race per year average I’ve done over these past 5 years!!
Of the last three weekends my pace was a few seconds faster on a much tougher course! I would imagine on a flat course I may have even approached a sub 2:20 time. I’ll get there!!
You would think Sunday was a day of rest! Not quite!! I knew I needed to start ramping up more miles so I decided to do the “last chance for Boston” 10k race Sunday morning. It’s a blah 1-mile loop course but filled with several hundred entrants! I was sore at the start and didn’t know if my body would hold up for me but by the end of the 2nd mile I had gotten into a rhythm and cranked off consistent laps from 2 through 5. On the last lap, I decided I’d take it somewhat easy and at the last quarter, I’d try to finish strongly! I think my last quarter was at a sub 8 minute pace (which is a world record, I’m sure….haha). It felt great to be done and I was about 2 minutes ahead of where I thought I’d be! Just as soon as it started, race 101 was in the books!!
Time for rest! Keep on running!!
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