Notes
Today was the Stowe 8-miler. I started this race hoping to run between a 56:00 and a 60:00, so in that sense I am very happy. I definitely didn't expect to be able to pull off sub 7:00s off of the training I've been doing. It almost makes me want to spend 6 weeks or so working on speed and trying to pull off a sub 18:00 5k.
I'm also a little bit disappointed with my performance just because a few of the people I used to race in high school were there and they absolutely crushed me. They're not running that much better than in high school either, it's just that they've been keeping up with training and I took years off from serious running. It's not realistic for me to expect to have competed today, but I definitely think if I give it a year I'll be right back up there.
Another disappointment was my racing ability. Having not raced for around 3 years, I expected to make some mistakes, but this race was pretty much a tutorial on the mistakes you can make. At the first mile I heard the woman behind me gasp and say to her friend "Oh god, a 6:25, we went out to fast!" Going out that fast on my unknown fitness level was my first mistake. The second mistake was when I decided that the pace felt easy enough to keep, so I just went on at 6:20-25 pace. The third mistake is when I caught the group ahead of me around mile 4 and decided that they were too slow for me. At mile 6 I turned into the guy that makes everyone else feel good by giving them someone to pass late in the race. The one thing I still have is my late race surge; around 7.25-7.5 I started really kicking; I would be willing to bet I hit that last mile in sub-6:00 pace.
This race was a lot of fun, and the t-shirt was the first tech shirt I've ever gotten. Also, the free ice cream and beer afterward was a fun touch, although that should be expected when both an ice cream company and a beer company were sponsors. Overall, this was a very positive day; I got a good indicator of my race fitness (and surprised myself with it) and got some good motivation to speed up (I need to catch those old high school guys!). I only hope that in 24 weeks I can be running three times this distance at the same pace.