Saturday, June 12, 2010

Week in Review - The Vindication Edition

After two less than stellar races, I'm back in action.  I had a great race on a great course and nailed my goal time and had a huge (almost 2 minute!) PR, finishing in 47:37.  If you are ever close enough to Green Bay to run The Bellin, I definitely recommend it (Jessica, I would so go with you next year.  Or any other Madison runner who is interested).  It's huge but well run.  The crowd support is amazing.  It's fairly inexpensive and the proceeds go to a great cause.  And it's the only loop course in the world that's a net downhill.  I think it was designed by M.C. Escher.


It played into my strengths as a runner because the uphill parts were very gradual and there was one huge downhill mile in the middle of the race.

My mile split times were:
7:31
7:36
7:14 (holy downhill, Batman)
7:40
7:51 (slowed down a bit, but this was the gradual uphill part)
7:51
7:20

By the middle of the race, I was pretty sure I was going to PR, but I didn't know by how much.  My 5k split time was 23:21, which is also a PR.

I don't mean to brag, but I'm pretty excited.  One the one hand, this is a huge boost going into marathon training.  In fact, that time qualifies me for a "preferred start" at the Madison Mini at the end of August.  On the other hand, it makes me wonder exactly why I signed up to do a marathon because I think I like shorter races a lot more.  I really like speed training, and I'm not super crazy about long runs...

Sometimes I feel like there's this message that you're not a "real runner" unless you run marathons, and I regret letting myself buy into that.  However, I know I didn't sign up for the marathon just because I felt like I "should".  I know I did it because- just like 99.9% of other runners- I want to qualify for Boston one day.  I feel like my running is really improving, and I think that I could do it- probably not this training cycle- but maybe next spring???  Anyway, I'll have happy running dreams tonight.

As for the rest of the week:
Su- 5m easy
M- 6mi easy
T- Strength
W- 6mi easy
R- Strength, yoga
F- 4mi easy
S- Bellin!