I ran 10 miles this morning in 1:18:58. Checked the resting HR again this morning, and it was 36 bpm again, but my HR was a little higher while I was running than I thought it should be, probably meaning that I am just a little bit fatigued still after running 15 miles yesterday, after running a hard 20 on Saturday (I felt dead all day on Saturday and even a little on Sunday after the tempo I ran, even though it wasn't even fast). I hoped that I would feel stronger in the evening for the race I was running. PM: I ran the Las Vegas Track Club 3200 meter race that was held at the Green Valley High School track across the street from my house. This is one of a series of free summer track races that the track club puts on. The race was at 7:00pm, but the sun was still glaring down on us when 7:00 hit. Temperatures were in the high 90's at the start of the race (the high today was 102), but luckily for us we got some shade on the backstretch from the bleachers. Luckily there was virtually no wind to add to the heat (when it is that hot, the wind feels like a giant hair dryer... not fun). Pre race goal was to try and hit 73 second quarters, giving me a 9:44, which I considered reasonable considering the heat, and the fact that I feel like I am lacking fitness right now with the layoff I had recently due to illness. As I was warming up my legs felt completely dead. I was barely running sub 8:00 pace, and it seemed like a struggle. This was not a good sign for me, and with the added heat I started wondering if I would even be able to go sub 10:00 for this race, even though I routinely split two miles faster than that in longer races. Add to this the fact that I had not run a race this short since 2003 and I was more worried than I should have been for a local free race. I talked to a guy named Andrew before the race, and he thought that the heat would cost us about 15 seconds per mile. He seemed to be my closest competition at the race, and appeared to know what he was talking about, so this made me even more unsure as to how I would do when the gun went off. I decided to just go for it, staying with the leaders for the first lap, and then trying to hit 73 second quarters even if it was too fast for me. I hoped it would turn out ok. I dumped some water over my head before the start to help me keep my body temperature down during the race. The race started, and two kids shot to the front, immediately putting a decent gap on the rest of the field. I stayed reasonably close to them, and Andrew tucked in behind me. I picked off the first kid near the end of the first lap, hitting it in 1:14. The pace felt good, so I picked up the pace just a little in order to try and hit 1:13's. I caught the second kid at about the 500m mark and from here on out it was just me, with Andrew right on my heels. We hit 800m in 2:27 (1:13) and I could tell that Andrew was not just a random guy, but he was real competition. He mentioned to me after the second lap that if we kept up the pace we were going we would lap a lot of people during the race. I picked up the effort a little for the third lap to test Andrew and see how he would respond, and he stayed glued to my backside. 3:39 for three laps (1:12) so I was right on goal pace now. The fourth lap slowed down just a little, and we went through 1600m in 5:53 (1:14). I wasn't happy that I had slowed down and was now a second behind pace, so I sped up again the fifth lap going through 2000m in 6:05 (1:12). By the sixth lap I started to feel the pace, and I was hurting just a bit trying not to slow down. Despite the effort not to slow, I did slow some, and went through 2400m in 7:20 (1:15). At this point we were lapping a lot of people, and throughout the race I had to swing wide to get by people on both the straightaways and the corners. It is possible that some of the slowdown on this lap was related to the extra people we were passing. The seventh lap was the same (1:15) and I hit the bell lap in 8:35. I was now 4 seconds behind goal pace, but I was honestly not worrying about this at all as Andrew was still right behind me. I started to push the pace at the beginning of this lap, and I could tell that he was starting to fall back a little. I hoped that it would be enough. I ran the next 200 in 35 seconds to make it to 3000m in 9:10, and then really started to push as I swung wide to pass some people before hitting the final straightaway. In the last 100m Andrew sprinted past me, as he had an extra gear that just wasn't there for me and we both finished in 9:41, giving me a 31 second final 200m and a 1:06 last lap. Despite not winning, I felt very happy about this race. It helped me realize that I am in better shape than I thought I was in, and I was able to run solid splits without killing off my kick completely, while leading virtually the entire race, even though I felt like my legs were dead weights before the race started. I think that if the heat were not there I would have run no slower than 9:30, and potentially as fast as 9:20, so this is encouraging. I finished by running a long cool down with Andrew. Ends up he is 44 years old, but just last year ran a 4:06 1500m (4:24 mile converted) which is faster than I have ever run over that distance. Total of 8.25 miles for the evening.
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