Saturday, July 27th, 2013

9 miles run.
2 mile warmup, 5 mile race, 2 mile cooldown.
20 mile bike later.
Carver 5 miler. USATF-NE 5 Mile Championship.
26:41. 2nd Master, 32nd overall.
Really didn't know what to expect. Warmup felt ok, but even at that, I wasn't sure what "ok" was.
The gun went and I quickly found myself drifting back, cautious as to not blow up, fearing that speed was not my friend today.
Normally, with this downhill first mile, I'm 5:00-5:05 easy. Today it was 5:14 and at the turn, I found myself well behind Chris Magill and with a bunch of masters guys around me. Uh-oh.
But then, something just worked, and that was that I was able to run strong over every little incline and keep it smooth on the downs. The biking had left me with good strength, but little turnover. So, as the race went on and got past 3 miles, I still felt strong and had left all but one Masters runner (Binny Mitchell) behind.
Last mile was a 5:15, so I closed strong. Really a decent race. Do I need more speed? Oh hell yeah. But the good thing is that I can still bike. Who would have thought that this would be the thing I was asking for in a race? Permission to bike. Wow. Still, it felt great to run and I can't express how psyched I was to see out Masters team victorious again, as well as the Seniors of both men and women (and masters women) as well as a 3rd for the Open men and 2nd for the Open women.
Great day.
For some reason, I thought it would be a good idea to come home and bike 20 miles. So I did, and grabbed a Strava first place on a section of bike trail with 24.9 mph .8 mile stretch on the flat. Not bad.