Always Look to Tomorrow

I think that should be my new motto, at least when it comes to Saturday runs.  But it was only partially my fault.  I'd decided to do a short race on Saturday but was going to run it easy with a weekday running buddy, Kiran.  We'd kind of agreed on a 30 second pace range, but I know he's substantially faster than me, but I figured we stick together during the week so it would be fine.  We emailed about it once on Friday and he mentioned again, easy pace and just referenced the faster end of our 30 second range.  Fine.  We met up Sat morning, and hooked up with Luis from my weekend group.  And the race started and we were going too fast.  I confirmed it at the half mile mark.  Instead of being at the faster end of our 30 second range, we were an additional 30 seconds faster by the end of the first mile.  I mentioned that I wanted to slow it down.  We did, very briefly.  Second mile was basically the same and I just wasn't interested.  I stopped to grab a cup of water at the stop and told them I'd see them later and they pushed on.  I saw them at the u-turn and I was about 6-8 seconds back, but on the way back, there was a severe uphill mile and I slowed (and the two of them separated).  I was still too fast though, faster than I wanted, faster than I'd planned. 

But with one mile to go, the damage was done so I decided to push a bit more over the last mile.  I was proud of myself.  I ended up with a PR by almost 30 seconds, but still not fast enough to place in my age group unfortunately.  But the good news is that I put my time into my fave pace predictor (McMillan), and it predicts me at a BQ, with a few minutes cushion actually.  I still can't get my mind around that. 

I gave Kiran some grief about bailing on our plan.  He said running a minute faster than the slower end of our range in the great weather we had Sat was the same as running at the slower end of our range in the heat.  I said that may be true for our lungs but isn't the case for my legs!  We hung out for a while after the race with Luis and his family, and one of my best friends (who actually did run it at an easy pace, I should have stuck with her!) and her family, including my sweet godson.  My hubby finished some extra miles after the race and then we all sat around while the kids played in the sprinklers.  The rest of the day was similarly relaxing.  Fun tasks like my car inspection, but we had our neighbors over for dinner and games, which was fun.  We played Scopa (Italian cards) before dinner and then chinese checkers before dessert. 

This morning I saw Kiran and told him that if he saw me walking or struggling on the 18 miles, he should feel guilty!  I wouldn't say it went well or felt good, but I finished and stayed with the middle of the pack pretty much.  It was cooler, which was nice, but my feet were sore.  Fortunately hubby bought me some of those blister bandaids and they actually stayed in place much better.  So I have sore heels but that's the most serious problem it appears.  I still wish I'd felt stronger or faster, but oh well.  Another 8 miles would have been ugly.  I'll be more careful to relax next Saturday before the 22.  I really need that run to go well. 

Planning to do some stuff around the house now, then going to see a movie this afternoon!