"March Madness"

For the 3rd straight year, I have ran the March Madness 1/2 marathon. For the 3rd straight year, the hills seems to get a little steeper and bigger each time I do the race. A race that sells out every year faster than the year before. It's a very competitive race. A race with lots of rolling hills and I think pretty much the must do race around here if you are planning to tackle the Boston Marathon in a couple of weeks.

This year was no exception. While racing, all the conversations I heard was about Boston: "You going to do Boston?" "How is your training for Boston going?"

Okay, I'm not fast enough to do a 7:20-7:30 minute marathon pace needed to qualify for 40-45 male age group. But maybe one year I will surely try. This year will not be it.

The race day had clear skies and temps in the mid 30-40's. The announcer said it will be a great day and expected fast times this day. As for me I always try to have some goal when I race. I wanted to run under 1:40. My race time last year was 1:45:57. All week long, my workouts have been less than perfect. I think the burnout and fatigue was plaguing me the whole week. But I thought I at least had a shot at it.

My plan for the first half of the race was to keep an even pace and stay below zone 3. So mission accomplished for the first half, but my running time put me at 56 minutes at the 7 mile point. A 8:00 minute mile pace, not the 7:30-7:40 pace I was hoping for. But I had to remind myself that this was only a "C" race on my ultra training schedule. So I said, "just try to settle down and run a comfortable pace, don't do anything stupid 4 weeks from the ultra". So then the goal was just to be 1 second faster than last year.

So at the end, I ran a 1:44:54 by my trusty GPS watch and 1:45.09 officially. But there was no chip timing, so I'll go by my watch, a 7:57 pace. I like the sound of that better. So a couple of seconds faster and not "bonking" the last 3 miles of this race. That was the goal achieved this day. Overall, that was an improvement. I was pretty surprised how I felt the entire race: "dang good." So maybe a 8:00 minute marathon pace or faster could be in my future one day. I was really wondering if this "running slower" regiment on the trails actually had some benefits or actual downside to my running. Well, I must say it didn't hurt it.

(Picture after the race: I'm the one on the far right holding some hot chocolate after the race with some fellow TRI studs and studettes ~ Yes, Pam you are missing from this picture)

So, two more weeks of long miles on my ULTRA training schedule and then let the "taper" mind games begin. For now, I'm ready to tackle another week of long miles.

Being burnt out, fatigued, and bitching about stuff all last week is now over!!

Hopefully another 40+ mile jaunt this weekend and one more 50k road training race in two weeks, a race that started me on this path of "Ultra-addiction."

It is starting to get exciting here folks on the Ultra race info. I got an e-mail about the current race conditions of the race course for the McNaughton Ultra:

"Thursday night camping is available at Delwood Camp which is right near the horse stables" ~Don't they know I'm horse crap-phobic!!!

"Creeks - Your feet will get wet twice per loop. The creeks can be dry and can be eight feet deep. Depends on the rain. Right now they are about shin deep for most." ~Okay, 8 foot streams would suck. Especially 5 loops of that. Shin deep only.. OKAY- that's manageable, still sucks, but I did sign up for this.

I just have to remember to bring more socks and less underwear if the water is less than knee high. That is always a bonus..