Thursday, April 4th - 4 miles. Ran with Crystal after work - nice and smooth on Old Faithful. Weather was gorgeous, and enjoyed a very quick run. 33:27 total.
Friday, April 5th - ~5 miles + strides. Made it to Chicago early, and met up with Anne downtown before heading back to her place and getting settled in. Had 4 miles on my plan with strides, and got out to Lakeshore and its crazy windy conditions. Got lost in my own world and missed my turnaround point so ended up with an extra mile or so. Found a small uninhabited path by the Fullerton exit on Lakeshore by the fountain, and did my strides there. Felt nice and relaxed, overall. Went to dinner at the Girl and Goat - absolutely delicious!!!!
Saturday, April 6th - 3 miles. Did Lakeshore on the soft paths out and back. The city had done some construction in the area, and had a new path which was very nice. Another extremely windy afternoon, and got blown around. Ran for roughly 25 minutes, and walked around the park with Anne and Ben afterwards (who had run as well). Ate dinner at Siena Tavern, which is Fabio's (from Top Chef fame) new restaurant. We had an early reservation (pretty much the norm if you want to get in a good place in Chi), and enjoyed a very nice dinner. Will definitely be back here! Watched the Final 4 games, then went to bed feeling pretty relaxed and ready to go.
Sunday, April 7th - 7 miles (1 up, SHAMROCK SHUFFLE 8K (31:15 PR - 459/33,215 overall), 1 down). Woke up nice and early, and had a bowl of Cheerios and banana before cabbing downtown. Had some issues with the idiot cabbie making a massive detour before eventually dropping me off, but got downtown in one piece. Met up with Ryan and Larry, then warmed up with them on Lakeshore before checking in our gear and heading to our corral. To make a long story short, because of the crazy traffic of people, they tried to shut the corrals and direct everyone else to Corral E (back of the line) which almost caused mass chaos and an angry mob consequently deflected the fence and charged to the gates. Luckily, we got in but not without an almost heart attack. Race conditions/weather was perfect, and Ryan and I went out relatively hard and tried to get settled in. The problem on the first mile is trying to establish position, so we ended up running a lot of zig zags and almost a tenth of a mile more. Felt controlled through the 5K point (~19:20) and exactly where I wanted to be, but choked on some Gatorade which made me slow down to regain my breath. At this point, lost a little ground on Ryan and tried to reel him in but it seemed like he was making a move (he wasn't, I was slowing down) and relaxed a little too much here. Got to mile 4 in position, and calculated I needed a very last mile to finish it out. Didn't have the mental drive to push me through the wall, and just waited too long to make my move which was a tactical error on my part. Congrats to Ryan for a solid race (30:58), and Larry for a great race as well (29:22)! 10 minute cool down, then hung out downtown for postrace celebration. 36 miles this week, 36 miles in April, 559 miles in 2013.
Was disappointed in my time, but still technically a PR and a lot of good things to take away. I was a lot stronger than I have been, and gained some good speed. Shouldn't have relaxed so much in a few points, and should have just pressed through since it was a short race. Felt a lot better than I have in a while, and have come a long way in 4 weeks and will continue to press on.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment