Making the best of "bad" races

Danielle:

Well, the first GPx race is in the books.  It should be law that no one can complain about any race they win or run a PR.  In spite of that, bare with me...  

Chad finished 6th overall in a PR of 22:20, but was disappointed since he was hoping to have a chance to break 22 and challenge for the top 5.  He ran the last two miles alone with a large gap between him and 5th place and struggled to keep pace more than expected.  Despite racing frequently, Chad very rarely has a bad race.  It’s a once a year happening really.  So for him to not hit his goal time was unusual and frustrating.   Of course, coming one week after a hilly half marathon with a nice sized PR, it’s not overly shocking that he didn’t have his “A” game.  He still ran a PR and won his age group, so it wasn’t really a bad race by any stretch of the imagination, but he was frustrated nonetheless.


I was the first female in a rather pedestrian 25:15.  My goal was to be as close to 25:00 as possible.  The very minimal running I’ve been able to do has certainly not been fast.  Although I did run some great 400s the other day, my longer repeats have been in the 6:10-6:20 range, thus, any hopes of a PR  were long gone before race day.  I was incredibly lucky that all of super fast females in Charlotte were out of town at other races, so I was still able to take the win.  Last year I was 4th at this race in 23:45- what a difference a year makes!  

All and all it is a good starting point for the year.  We both locked up some great GPx points and got the series off to a good start.   Especially considering the fact that this race was looking like a points drop about a week ago.     

I also have to recognize a few friends who ran particularly impressive races this weekend:  The Captain, Paul Mainwaring broke his 5k PR on the track Friday and came out Saturday morning and took 3rd in the 4 mile; hopefully he didn’t strain his calf too bad in the double.  Michelle Hazelton battled the wind to notch a PR at the Shamrock Marathon.  Kelly Fillnow won the Tobacco Road Marathon in 2:55 and Alice Rogers smiled through the rain at the LA Marathon finishing in 2:55.  

It was also another impressive weekend for One2Tri racers, Mo Campbell PR’ed, broke 3 hours and was second behind Kelly at Tobacco Road in 2:59.  While Jon Clary and Keith Mrochek were in Wrightsville Beach dominating the Quintilies Marathon.  Jon finished 3rd in 2:51 while Keith broke his recent PR finishing 7th in 2:54.  A very impressive weekend of racing!

With the race on Saturday, Sunday was long run day.  Now I am not a huge long run fan in general, but the Sunday long run is the bane of my existence.  For whatever reason, it just feels so much worse when I have to run long on Sunday.  In my “3 weeks to get in shape to finish Boston plan” Sunday was a necessary 18 miles.  I eeked out a 15 the week prior, so I wasn’t particularly brimming with confidence at the start, but the run ended up being fine.  Chad decided to break up his 22 into 2 tempos so we could run together for a large part  part of the run.  He took off after mile 8 to tempo 6 miles, then we met up again at mile 13.5 for me (14.5 for him) and ran to 18 together before he took off again to finish up his run at a faster clip, while I sat on a bench and dreamed of the delicious homemade pizza dinner I would get later on.  Running with other people is so much better than solo long runs!

This week features the Duke Energy Tower Stair Run-up (Chad), a Guinness Book of World Record 100 x 5k attempt (Chad), and the Cool Breeze Sprint Triathlon (Dee).  Needless to say, it’s going to be a hectic weekend!  My only goals for my debut tri is to not drown in the pool or crash on the bike.  If I can manage that it will be a success!