Notes
I had my 20K "Iron Lung" race yesterday. This race takes most of the trails around my house; ie: the ones I train on most of the time.
I started out ok; basically in "warm up" pace for the first 10 minutes (there is a big* hill at the beginning) *Note: my idea of big hill has been changed dramatically.
It then takes a bit of a plateau for the next 8-10 KM with lots of up and down in between. At the 10KM mark there is a "really big" hill that I walked up. The hill is runable (it was gravel) but my tender legs didn't want to push any more.
We then go back down to the river (3 KM) and we start the "epic climb". This was pure insanity. Think stairs; scrambling on hands and feet; heart rate at 180; and this kept going for 25 minutes! At the top you basically turn around and then have to "run" down! This was pretty scary actually as it was loose gravel and I actually fell down a couple of times.
At the bottom it was a "sprint" to the finish :)
I got a couple of bisters I am nursing now; my legs feel very tired; and my whole body is in recovery mode.
My "goal" time was 2:15 - 2:30 and I came in right in the middle at 2:23. One thing I did notice was that I am not very fast on the flat section. Between KM 3 and 10 (the flat rolling section) I was getting passed by some other runners, not sure what to think about that. I kept in my "Zone 1" pace; ie: heart rate pretty low; shuffling along.