So, for a race report for last night’s race, I’ll post what I sent to the DRS mailing list.
Yesterday I did my second race since the marathon, the four mile Crescent Connection Road Race. It starts on the west bank of the river, at a mall, goes up the on-ramp into the HOV lane of the Mississippi River bridge, then across the river and down to the other side, where it ends by the Riverwalk, another mall that overlooks the, um, river.
I have hardly run all summer, but I’ve been wanting to do this race because although I have to drive over this bridge every day, how often will I get to *run* over it? So I wasn’t expecting much, just wanting to finish in an hour, no big deal. I thought I’d walk the first half (uphill) and run the second half (downhill).
I live near the bridge, and every day I drive under it to get to my house. My lord, is it high. And when my boyfriend and I were coming back from breakfast, I really noticed how high it was. And that meant I’d have to basically run up a hill that high. Ack!
The weather, though, was great. Overcast and temperature in the, oh, low 80s, maybe? Maybe even a little lower? It was an evening race. Altogether the best running conditions I’ve had all summer. So anyway, the race starts, but you don’t start going uphill until about half a mile into it. So I ran the first half mile. Walk a little of the uphill, but it’s so gradual that you can barely even feel it running, so I run some of it. First mile is 12:28. Woah! So now I’m thinking, I can definitely finish this in under an hour. There’s no way the next mile’s going to take me 17:30, it doesn’t get any steeper, so I’m revising my estimates. Mile two is steadily uphill, no flat parts, but again, it’s so gradual, I’m able to run more of it than I expected. Second mile split is 13:32.
Here’s where it gets fun. We’re exactly half-way over the river, and now the bridge starts to slope down. Only slightly, but I start to run again. And then comes the exit ramp! woooooooo hoooooooo! I just cruise down the hill, thinking of my run in Austin with Cilla (where she wondered about people who stuck to their pace on downhills), and let gravity do all the work. Fun, fun, fun, and I finished mile 3 in 10:56.
So now I’m thinking, maybe I can finish in 50 minutes. No, because then I’d have to run the last mile in under 13 minutes, and it’s all flat, and now I’m getting a little tired. So I think, under 51 minutes is fine with me. So I run, and walk a little, making sure to conserve enough energy to at least run to the finish line, and I see a corner up ahead, thinking there’s probably another quarter of a mile after that, but nooooo, the finish line is about 100 yards away, and I have 49:10 on my watch, definitely enough time to finish in under 50 minutes, and I cross the finish line in 49:39.
yay!
and i beat the big group of coast guard people. of course, they were chanting. but still, i never beat the big groups of armed forces people!
pam
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