Monday, February 4, 2013

Run Like Hell

The Mid-Winter Classic 10 Mile Road Race
Cape Elizabeth, Maine 
February 3, 2013

I signed up for this race quite a while ago and had some pretty solid goals for this race. I broke the 1:45 barrier on the half marathon distance in December so my goal to go sub 1:20 at a 10 miler was completely reasonable...until January happened.

I did a lot of traveling in January-Florida and Colorado-and come home from FL with a nasty chest cold that lingered through the Colorado trip and beyond. Lola was sick too and my training plan for the month was really screwed up! It's freaky to me to look into Training Peaks and see almost an entire week of RED BLOCKS from incomplete or missed workouts!

I chatted with Coach and we both agreed that it was smart to put any lofty goals on hold for the day and just run, call it a training day and take it mile by mile. I wasn't even sure if I was going to show up come 9:45 on Sunday morning. The weather has been COLD and they were predicting snow for the day. There was no way I wanted to prolong this chest cold in freezing temps to just run and not race. Then I found out that my girl, Mandy, would be there--you know, Caratunk Girl.

That's all I needed to know. I have not seen Mandy in a while and as long as the roads were safe to drive up to Cape E for the race, I'd be there.

It was cold, temps in the 20's and the winds brought the "feels like" temps down to about 10*. Layer, layer, layer and be smart! I walked into the High School for packet pick up and right away got to see my awesome Rev3 Team mate, Ryan. Then picked up my race bib.

REALLY?? C'mon....











Then I got to see Mandy.





And Jake.




DOUBLE BONUS!!

We made lots of jokes about my bib number and it was decided that I would RUN LIKE HELL!
The run's theme song would be "Running with the Devil" by Van Halen.


I also got to see running buddies Danielle and Sarah, whom I have not seen in forever!! Danielle is looking marvy with a little baby bump (25 weeks along and looking amazing).


chatting up Danielle and her cute bump
Got out to warm up a bit (ha ha) it was freezing and found Michelle in the parking lot. Lucky Michelle got to witness me christen the CEHS parking lot before the race (and dare I say this is not the first time I have done this...Beach to Beacon 2012!)


obviously, NOT peeing in the parking lot in this pic! 
Then I ran into Jen (yay!!) I've been wanting to meet this gal in real life for a while! She was pacing to what my goal time was today and I was hoping we could run together but...we lost each other before the start.

I lined up and started with Mandy, Michelle and a couple of her friends and just trotted along a bit. I was pretty happy at about 8:45 pace so just kept it there and went with it.


Michelle in Yellow, Mandy in Green and me in Pink (behind red guy)
The first five miles of the course are all rollers and I was feeling good and strong on the hills. Cadence was where it was supposed to be, I was running easy and keeping the HR in check. Pace was solid and consistent at 8:30's and I was feeling good. I hit the half way mark around 42:00 mins and was pretty sure I was on pace for a 1:25-ish finish time. The plan for the rest of the miles was to stay steady at 8:30 and pick it up the last 3 miles and finish strong-no mind to HR at that point.




The last two miles were quite comical--this is actually the flattest part of the course with a slight incline, but into a very cold and strong wind on this day. It was soooo cold and I felt like it was just pushing against me. Ok, it was pushing against me. I'd glance at the Garmin to see high 8:00's and low 9:00's flash at me and I was getting annoyed. To add insult to injury, I had peed a little and my entire inner thighs were wet and FREEZING.



NUMB cold freezing painful NUMB.

So I just chugged along and I spotted a local tri club gal, Kim up ahead about a half mile or so. I tried like the dickens to catch her but that would not happen today. I had no idea where the finish line was but we started in the HS parking lot so I figured it finished around there too. Sure enough, I saw the runners ahead turning into the school and I just kept running...and running...and running. It was a slight downhill to the finish line and boom! Done



1:26:04 for an 8:36 pace and 6th in my division.




Not bad for a training day and I will definitely return to run this route again. I loved it! Lots of little rollers and part of the course is along the Beach to Beacon course.
Next year that sub 1:20 finish is all mine.



awesome! Michelle and Mandy having fun


how cute is she?? GO JEN B
Happy to report that Jen finished in 1:19!! GO JEN GO!
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15 comments:

ONEHOURIRONMAN said...

Fun stuff
I forgot how short Mandy was..
Just a little munchkin, isn't she?

Running With The Girls said...

Just awesome!!!! So happy to have met you (finally) yesterday. We HAVE to do more races together. You rock, my sister. I have zero doubt that if you hadn't been sick most/all of January, you would have finished with or ahead of me. You are a rockstar!!! xoxox

TriMOEngr said...

Such fun pictures! Glad the day turned out ok even with a crazy month leading up to it.

Frickin' Fabulous at 40 said...

I have peed just about every hour since like 9 pm last night. I had to get off the arc trainer twice to use the bathroom. I can NOT imagine having this problem in 10* weather! (Trying something new and not drinking after 7 pm so I might get some sleep tonight!)

ajh said...

You did great and got to see lots of racers you know!

middleagedrunner said...

Awesome job on a really chilly day! I'm still sad that I missed the pre race fun- damn long run!!

Chloe said...

Congrats on the great run! And I'm totally jealous you got to see Mandy!

Tara Martine said...

Congrats on your race Jen! I was LOL-ing at your bib #!!! I really thought that they just skipped that number when it came to printing bibs - kind of like how there's no 13th floor in hotels, haha!

Big Daddy Diesel said...

How fun!! Congrats on the race

I would have turned my bib upside down so it read 999

Chris said...

I'm with you Jen, I HATE the cold. You turned it into a great race, congrats. It's always fun to run with a bunch of friends.

Melissa Cunningham said...

what a great run,and love the pics!!!!!
and i just lol'd when i saw your race bib,as that was my number on my first postpartum "race" after this last baby!
http://melissacunninghamifpapro.blogspot.com/2012/07/firecracker-5-mile-race-recap.html

hope your chest cold clears up asap,and i have no doubts at all that you will crush your 1:20 goal next time!!!

Carolina John said...

Cool! Great race girl. very cool. I mean anytime you get to hang out with Mandy is fun. But you put up a good time too.

Unknown said...

I love it when we surprise ourselves like that! Nice job for a "training run" Glad you are feeling better

Carly said...

You are awesome!!!

Joel said...

great race report! That said, I will never comprehend how folks can run outside when the temps are that low.....below 40 and I am lookind for a treadmill :-)