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First Red Bar - 5 mile Shamrock Run, Bristol, CT (Read 447 times)


Giant Flaming Dork

    First race this year. Event: 6th annual Shamrock Run Location: Bristol, CT When: 3/29/08 Distance: 5miles Course: Hilly course on neighborhood streets and past an industrial park weather: 31°F - Windy and clear Time: 43:53 Place: 133/240 Splits: Mile 1: 8:47 HR avg: 137 Mile 2: 8:50 17:37 HR avg: 157 Mile 3: 9:22 26:59 HR avg: 164 Mile 4: 9:00 35:59 HR avg: 166 Finish: 7:46 43:46 HR avg: 168 This race is about 10 minutes from my house on a notoriously hilly course. I've mapped it out so you can take a look. From just before Mile 2 to just before mile 4, it is all uphill. Today we were treated to gusty winds out of the north, forcing us to run into the wind on most of the worst hills :-/ I have been training with an HRM, and thought I had a pretty good handle on how to use this information in training. It was completely not useful for running the race (I had not anticipated what the excitement of the event does to your heart rate). I need more practice! Cool The race is a pretty good size given the odd distance. I had pre-registered, and check in was a breeze. The shirts were cotton (bummer), they gave out pint glasses (good!) but nothing to fill them with (bad.). They had good food planned (clam chowder!) but none left by the time I got back from the race. They had oranges, bananas, water, and 100 calorie packs of some kind of chips ahoy (odd) at the finish. This event had both a 2 mile and 5 mile run. There were many walkers and runners for the 2 mile event. They run the 2-mile first and the 5 after. The first mile, I had a difficult time finding my pace, as there were much faster and much slower runners where I was lined up in the start area (kinda in the middle of the pack). The first couple of miles were pretty easy, but noticed that although I was running slower than expected (9:00 pace), I was winded and the heart rate was much higher than expected. I'm still not sure why that was. Miles 2-4 were straight into the wind and uphill. I got a draft for almost half a mile from a 6'6" woman. I tried to reciprocate on one of the more challenging hills that was straight into the wind. About 75% up the hill, she passed me and thanked me for trying. I ended up passing her for good at about the 3.5 mile mark. I'm not sure I feel good about that after she pulled me for quite a ways. All the elevation you gain in those two miles, you get back in a 0.75mi stretch. This downhill is pretty brutal and starts just before mile 4. The flat parts just before mile 4 allowed me to recover slightly and I felt good kicking it down the hill (on the forefoot, leaning forward). For the most part, I was able to keep it in control and was able to pass about a dozen people. The final uphill before the finish allowed me to try out one of the racing suggestions from RA members. I made a move on two guys going up the last hill, getting about 10m ahead of them. Neither of them tried to counter (I realize, of course, I'm fighting over two places near the back of the pack!) Neither of them tried to counter. I had very little left to kick at the end after the hill. It was almost impossible not to negative split on the downhill, but I felt like I was going pretty fast (for me), ended up being a 7:45 mile. It's obvious from my finishing time and from my log that I have a lot of mileage to build before I can run to win at this race. Hill training would have been useful for this race, but it does not make any sense for me to do that with such a small base of miles. Maybe for next year. For the most part, it's nice to compete and to try out the new legs after far too many miles on the treadmill during the winter. It's also nice to run the fastest mile I have in competition in 20 years. MTA: Oh, and I had no gastro-intestinal escapades. Shocked

    http://xkcd.com/621/


    Another Passion

      Nice job and report!

      Rick
      "The will to win means nothing without the will to prepare." - Juma Ikangaa
      "I wanna go fast." Ricky Bobby
      runningforcassy.blogspot.com