This weekend, tons of racing! Meb won the Rock n Roll San Jose Half Marathon in a personal PR of 1:01:00 - looking good for his NYC prep! Also, Brian Sell won in his NYC preparations at the very hilly inaugural Brooksie Way Half Marathon. Finally, a great interview with Sell talking about his final marathon in NYC and just running in general.
Got in my final weekend of training, and still enjoying the taper in general. Didn't run on Thursday or Friday - opted for rest since legs were a little tired, and got in some decent workouts already, plus the race was looming over the weekend. Saturday morning, woke up a little later and did our last "long run" on the trails. Weather was chilly, but very fall like and absolutely loved it! Did out and back towards Glen Carbon, wanted to not go too hard but you know how that works out. First few miles were conservative but felt great. Was hitting a major wind going on the downhill, and didn't really realize it until the turnaround when it suddenly felt a million times easier to run. Got into a good rhythm, just kept going at a good pace. Hit the uphill coming back faster, run was pretty easy. Never pushed it at all, except picked it up on the final half mile a little bit. Total mileage: 8 miles - splits were: 8:00, 7:37, 7:40, 7:43, 7:28, 7:33, 7:35, 7:22.
At night, watched Running the Sahara which is an awesome documentary detailing 3 runners running over 4,000 miles in 111 days across the Sahara Desert. Kind of makes me feel like a wimp complaining about my measley 26.2 miles in perfect conditions! But definitely see this movie, really cool stuff! Woke up the next morning to go pace Crystal in the St. Peters Rec-Plex Fall Triathlon, pretty much the same race we did in June which was a pretty hot ordeal but Crystal's team finished 2nd in! Her friend Linda swims 500 meters, her friend Tom bikes 21 miles, then Crystal runs 4.4 miles on a pretty hilly trail. Weather was very cool, but perfect to run in. Woke up bright and early to go to their house only to knock on the door and realize the racer was still in bed sleeping away! Eventually, she got up and got ready, and we were off to the race. Met her team there, watched the swim portion then went back to the car to change. Warmed up for 10 minutes, then walked back to the bike transition area and waited for Tom to get back. He got back in about 7th place at the time, then off we went! First mile, lots of turns, went out quick but not as fast as we usually go, and tried to get into a good rhythm. My purpose in this race is to pace, but Crystal utilizes me more as a pack runner and basically to run on her shoulder and keep her in check. Flew through the first mile right around what we wanted, then hit the hills on miles 2 and 3. Could tell Crystal wasn't feeling the best, so we slowed the pace down about 5 seconds to try to regroup. Saw a runner up ahead, made a mental note that we were going to catch and pass that dude. After the 3rd mile, you hit some more hills but mainly downhill grade, so she was able to get her legs back a bit and we settled into a pretty consistent pace at that point. Last mile, caught that runner, surged down the stretch and she finished strong with a good kick. Total mileage: ~4.4 miles - splits were: 6:34, 6:49, 6:53, 6:50, last half was 6:44 pace.
Good race for their team - they finished 5th overall, actually almost a minute faster than in June, but there was some good competition out there. We finished a minute and a half faster in our run, so was nice to get in that type of effort. Legs felt really good out there, and obviously the taper is working :) Last week hit about 30 miles in 5 days, felt more like 10 miles for some weird reason. Now onto race week! Not too many workouts coming up, and I leave for Chi on Thursday afternoon!!!!
As promised, pics from Kings of Leon concert last week:
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