Moonlight Run

This is Chad and I before the run on Saturday night. I think we both ate a little too much, but we still had really good runs. Chad did his 6 km run in 31:24. I'll let him tell you about his run!

My run time last year was 59:18, this year my time was 53:20 and I was 12th/53 in my age category! I took 6:10 off of my time from last year. The funny thing is I was worried because I have only been doing base training and no intervals!

I started out down the hill going pretty fast (I think this is why I am so sore:) About 25-30 min into the race my legs were burning! I tried not to think about it and just keep going.

I re-evaluated where I was at every 20 min. After the first 20 min I was feeling pretty good holding a good pace, I followed this tall lanky guy for awhile. I was pretty pumped I could stay with the tall guy...his legs were like 3 feet longer than mine:) Oh and there are a lot spitters in Lethbridge, eeewww. It is a pretty crowded race and people were spitting all over the place without watching for other runners behind them. I had a couple of close calls; needless to say it gave me motivation to run faster and get away from them!

Anyway, my next evaluation was at 40 min, the burning started to subside momentarily and I was still feeling okay. I was getting close to the end because we were on our way back towards the hill. I was at the bottom of the giant hill at 44 min. I talked to Greg before the race; he said to pace myself throughout so that I can giver up the hill and go into an anaerobic zone and I should be fine because the race is over once you get to the top of the hill! So that is what I did. I thought my legs were burning before, boy oh boy was I wrong. I counted the number of corners on the way down so I knew I had 4 curves in the road before I was at the top. I ran and counted down, it didn't start to really hurt until about 1/2 way up. At that point it comes down to mental toughness!

Once I finished I found Chad and noticed I could feel my quads tightening right away. Ouch ouch ouch! We waited for Peggy to finish and went in for the awards ceremony. I like this race because they give out a lot of prizes. Chad cleaned up: he got 2 hats, a pair of socks, and a travel mug. I guess those long arms do come in handy! Ha ha. He gave Peggy one of the hats and gave me the mug (which I am drinking out of right now!), so everyone went home happy.

We didn't get home until late last night, so no bike ride for me. Oh well, turns out groceries are important too! I am still pretty sore today, so I think I am going to bike tonight and do some weights. I am going to forgo running in the next couple of days!