Northern Lakes 30K Race Report

So my training is now complete. Last long run under the belt and now it's taper time and mental preparation. I can do nothing more trainingwise other than letting my body recover that will change what is going to happen in 3 weeks...and I have to remember that every day and not over do anything. The 30K was in White Bear Lake, about 45 minutes from my house and Devi and I headed up there to run about 6:30 am, after having been up since about 4:30, having breakfast and a little pre-race prep. Oh and I tried one other new thing, 5-hour Energy, the drink that has been handed out lately at some races and I have to say I think it did the trick on this run.

We got there with plenty of time, visited the porta-potties twice and made it out just in time to jog to the start line, line up and go, I lined up at the back wanting to start slow, this is just a training run, 3 weeks to the marathon…The conditions were humid and set to get very hot by the finish, I hit the first two miles right on at 9:30 pace (and my GPS was right with them, but there were the only two it was on the same page with, all others were off) and could tell people around me had started too fast, but I was feeling good, first water stop was at mile 3 and it was still congested so I had to stop and wait for water to be poured and I took two cups, which was the state for each one, one to drink and one to dump on my head, just after this water stop Somewhere Over the Rainbow came onto my MP3 and I thought of a friend of mine whose daughter was killed in a car accident 2 years ago, that song was played at her funeral and this weekend she would've graduated from high school, it made me sad and I got teary eyed and thought of her and him during the rest of my race.

The run was pretty uneventful, I felt good the whole time and managed to run the entire thing with only the stops that were required to get water. It was a nice course, along some lakes, light rolling hills and good support except that the water stops that were supposed to have Gatorade did not, I only managed to get one small cup of it at mile 9 and that was not enough…I skipped water at a few of the stops because I wanted the Gatorade and just focused on getting back and hoping against hope some would be at the end. Thankfully I had brought some of my Endurolytes tablets and they definitely helped. There was one girl that had passed me and was long gone around mile 7, she had been running a really good pace and I thought good for her, I knew my pace was on and I kept putting bulls eyes on people ahead of me and slowly passing a lot, other than that girl, no one else passed me, which was kind of nice. The girl that had passed me I saw again at a little before mile 15 or so, wasn’t focused on catching up to her, but she was doing walks and runs by this point and I did catch her and pass her at about mile 18, she passed me again with about half a mile to go, but then I passed her when she started walking and I managed to keep in front of her and pass a few others before the finish. I didn’t think I would kick much, but at the end I had something, probably just wanting to get done and have some ice water and Gatorade, my stomach was queasy though, and the heat was definitely getting to me.

More and more I’m glad my marathon is starting at 6 am, as I should be done before it starts to really, really get hot that day. My GPS had the course at 18.88, well, at least that’s how far I ran and some of the miles were definitely off so I am guessing it’s a bit off, but I had really wanted to run 19 or 20 this weekend anyway, so I’m glad I got the extra distance in. My time was 2:53 or so, I need to check that as I hadn’t seen official results yet and my average pace was 9:09, I had been shooting to start at 9:30, bump up to 9:15 and finish the last few miles around 8:45, I had a few miles at the end in the 8:48 range and one at about 8:30, I'll have to get my splits uploaded and analyze tings...I wanted to average 9:15, I was a bit fast and it was hot, so it probably would’ve been even faster on a less humid day so it was actually a really good run, and I'm not sore or hurting at all today.

This is the best training session I've had for a marathon. I've done everything I could to keep from being injured, followed a good program and now I have 3 weeks of mental prep light workouts and some cross training and good eating so I can really see what I can do for once on a course when all conditions are right. So I'm focused on eating well, maybe losing one or two more pounds and no more alcohol until after race day.

Bring on the taper.