Well, October 20th has come and gone. That day was the Children's Hospital at Dartmouth Heroes race day. I participated in the event for the first time. I believed going into this race that I would be able to really put up an good time. I thought I was extremely prepared and ready to go, and I think I did pretty well but not completely prepared. Well, first let's get to the result.
Place Div/Tot Name Guntime Nettime Pace
===== ======== ========== ====== ====== ======
87 21/88 Thomas Rup 1:41:58 1:41:49.51 7:47
To explain this a little more, there was 659 runners in the race. That puts this finish in the top 20th percentile (rough calculation in my head). That is something to be pretty happy with. However I know I have run a better paces than a 7:47, including the race I did in the spring. However, no two races are the same, and this certainly exemplified that. The race in the spring was more geared towards beginner runners. The race started with a good uphill, but then was a gradual downhill and flat course from that point on. The race this fall started pretty flat, with a good downhill and then a lot more gradual hills and flat for the first 8 miles. Then, the last 4.5 miles of the race consisted of steep inclines and far more up and down terrain. The last 1/3 of the race really kicked my tail because I did not do much hard hill training. All in all I would say this was car more of a novice to intermediate race. I think I could do much better at it now knowing how many hills there are at the end, I could train my muscles to be able to handle that much better.
In the days following the race I really struggled with some post race soreness. It has probably taken me about 3-4 days just to have my thighs not be sore when getting out of a chair. As I started to feel slightly better on Tuesday I was able to get out for a slow, 5 mile recovery run. I followed that up with a 7 mile harder run on Thursday to try to loosen my legs more. I went at a pretty good pace and it did seem hard to get my legs moving, but then after my typical 3 miles I was much more loose and ready to go. Plus the temp being at or around 32 degrees really helped me keep cool while pushing a little harder. I will probably be going up to 10 miles or so on Saturday as I hit some recovery and head towards the increase to try to get to 20 miles in the next 20 weeks.
I think I will also do something else while I am training for the full marathon distances. I may look at the 100 push up challenge, taking it slower that the 6 weeks they say someone can do it in. The plan can be found here: http://www.hundredpushups.com/#sthash.TRS5FqN5.dpbs, this would be something to just find a way to get other muscles moving and going to help in fitness and overall body endurance.
I have recently purchased some new technology for running, I will probably post something soon about how those are working out and how life is running in some pretty cold temps.
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