70F, 100% and calm. Ran 10 for Texas this morning, a big fall kickoff race held every year in the Woodlands. They cut the entries at 2500, so it isn't huge but it attracts some of the faster runners in the area, including in my age group. I had so much trouble hitting GMP this week that I wasn't sure what to expect, especially with the heat. I went back and checked, and except for Thursday (also 70F) this was the warmest morning of the month. We are cooling off tomorrow and I don't expect it to get back up this high, so it was a good test of my summer slogging. I figured even if I couldn't run fast I could still place well, and I decided not to run yesterday because I had been hitting it hard every day and my legs needed rest anyway, so a good excuse for a mini-taper.
Wade is out of town, but his brother and sister-in-law came to my house with a friend, and Linda came also, making 5 of us. We left my house at 6:00 (I woke up at 3:45 like a kid at Christmas, pretty irritating), arriving about 45 minutes before the race at 7:30, by which time it had hit 70F. We stood in the PoP line, not because we needed to but because they are lighted and they have soap, running wash-basin water and flowers. Thoroughly sanitized at the start line, the race started right on time. Some high school choir sang the national anthem, then almost got run over when the horn sounded on the last note. (I didn't feel bad for them, they chickened out and didn't go for the last high C, no sense of adventure in that group.) I eased in with the 7-8 minute group and met some runners from my Y group, one of them has a 3:17 marathon and the other a 3:30. I started out easy and my Y group friends took off ran the first mile in 6:40. In the first two miles my legs felt strong (glycogen re-charge after taking a day off) and the pace felt easy, 7:06 (167) and 6:57 (176). I felt sky-high and somewhat emotional, even though I knew it would be a suffer-fest, was just really grateful to be racing hard today. My heart rate was very high, but I decided to go with it and see what happened.
After two miles I passed all my Y buddies and never saw them again. Also found The Old Man in the Short Shorts and passed him at mile 3, did not want to see him again, apparently he has only one pair, possibly he has been wearing them continuously since last time.
The rest of the race went as follows: 7:06 (176), 7:16 (177), 7:11 (179), 6:59 (182) (my typical mile 6 respite, I knew it wouldn't last), 7:10 (183), 7:19 (182), 7:15 (182) and 7:24 (184), maxHR 186. I faded in the heat, but not disastrously. Final time was 1:11:58, 7:10 per mile according to my Garmin, probably more like 7:12 per mile. I ran behind a group most of the way until they faded, only to get overtaken on the last quarter by a different but similar-sized group. When I left the scene the computer had me at 2nd in my age group, 45th male, but there were a lot of runners whose times weren't reading, including a 55-year old whose Garmin showed 18 seconds faster than me (I never saw him out there, kind of strange).
So I don't know what my final placement will be, but not important. I confirmed to myself that I am still in good shape, that tapers work, and that I can sustain a pretty high heart rate, at least in the heat. Some extra confidence as I finish the training cycle for the Richmond Marathon in 4 weeks. | 