Ran the Lake to Lake Relay today with Bill, James, Dustin and Steve. We had a good time and ran pretty good too. I ran legs 5, and 10- so kind of the anchor legs. Our order was kind of messed up because Steve had to leave early. So it went: Steve, Dustin, James, Steve, Me, Bill, Dustin, James, Bill, Me. Not the best case for everyone but me. I had the total rest time but some of the guys had to run just two legs after running. Kind of tough to do- but they did great. We were in third place after the first leg and then Dustin and James put us into 1st by my first leg. Leg 5- 5.6 miles (should have been 5.98). I ran it in just under 29:00 but forgot to stop the watch so I didn't have an exact. Splits: 5:25, 5:30, 5:53, 5:38, 5:43, 5:34 pace for the last part. My garmin said 5:38 avg for the leg but might have been a little faster if I'd have stopped the watch. Nonetheless I was happy! Going into the race I thought I'd be thrilled to avg 6 min pace for my legs. I just didn't know what to expect after not racing or running hard for so long. Anyways the leg is like .5% grade downhill for the first 2 miles and then a solid mile or so climb then drops for about a mile and levels off to finish. Not a hard leg but with the climb not easy- it was rated 7 out of 10 for difficulty. I felt good with no hammy pain and only about barfed once at the top of the hill climb. Then I handed off to Bill who ran a solid leg, then he to Dustin, then Dustin to James and James back to Bill. When Bill took off we had around 4 min and 20 second lead. But Bills leg was tough- and for that matter the wind had picked up and everyone from Dustin back had been fighting a headwind. Bill on short recovery was running against the 2nd place teams fastest runner (Kory). So Kory caught Bill and gapped him by around 1 min and 30 seconds. I totally didn't want to run hard and had been dreaming about relaxing on the finial leg to a win... Leg 10- 4.8 miles in 28:22 for an avg of 5:55. This leg starts with a .5 mile climb and then you drop down the other side for about the same. Then it's a gradual climb to mile 3ish and levels off or kind of rolly the last couple. Splits: 5:21 (got out fast... maybe too fast), 5:44, 5:58, 6:37, 5:54 pace on the last .8. So I was trying to run down the lead kid here and caught him at around mile 3. As we climbed up the dam by the lake I could see the finish line stuff and people were yelling "go, finish hard". So I thought I was basically done... Not when I got to the entrance to the parking lot I realized we still had to go out and back a long the lake and I just about died at the thought. Here the wind was pounding (hence the 6:37 mile). I just couldn't go any faster against it and it was warm or maybe even hot now as the sun was roasting me. Mouth dry and legs done I went out the the turn around and then back to the finish. Not a strong or pretty finish but fun to have caught the (Decker team) and got a win for us. Overall I'm really excited about how the legs did today. Like I said if you would have given me 5:59 avg pace last night I would have taken it. Hopefully I can use this race to spring board myself into some faster training workouts and maybe find the runner I lost 16 months ago? | 