Winter Races

Winter is the time of year I don't really thing about racing.  In fact, even training in the winter is usually less intense.  This year with the Boston Marathon coming up in April, I knew I'd have to do some good training over the winter and probably a few races to keep my fitness level what it was in the fall.  I decided to pick a few races from the USA Track and Field Utah road racing circuit this year.  In this circuit you earn points based on how you place against other USA Track and Field members.  One of the first ones was a 5K that is part of a winter series the Salt Lake Track Club hosts.  Andrew came with me on this one and we drove out to The Great Saltair to race.  It was cold but it wasn't icy or windy, so not a bad day to race the end of January.  I rarely run 5Ks anymore.  I usually race longer distances, partly because I feel like it is my strength but also because the 5000 was my distance in college and I felt like I would never be able to run that fast again.  After running the longer distances for so long, 5000 meters felt like a sprint!  The course was flat and the circuit brought a lot of fast runners.  It started out fast and I struggled a little with pacing myself.  I finally decided to try to stick with a few of the women up close to the front.  It felt fast and I was hoping to hit my first mile around 6:00.  It was 5:53.  I was starting to wonder if I could hold this pace for three miles but the girls with me were pushing me so I kept running hard.  It was an out and back course so and when I got to the turn around there was one girl in front of me that had a pretty good lead and one right behind me.   By the two mile mark the girl behind me had dropped back and I hit that split in 5:54.  The last mile I was getting pretty tired but I thought I was starting to gain a little ground on the leader.  My third mile was the fastest in 5:43.  I had let the leader get to big of a lead at the start and couldn't catch her but second place was a great place to start out the circuit against some great runners.  Mostly I was amazed at the time I ran.  18:08!  It was just a few seconds off my fastest 5K in college!  The circuit races all give out good cash prizes and I came home with a New Balance gift card.  Andrew had a good race too, especially considering he hasn't been running much over the winter and placed second in his age group.

I have run the Striders Winter Racing Circuit here in Ogden several of the last few years.  I decided this year not to run them because the courses are so extremely difficult and the timing of the last two races doesn't work well with Boston.  They added the 10 miler to the USA Track and Field circuit though so I decided it was worth running it to get the points.  It's the course I detest more than any others because the hills are so terrible.  I found myself dreading the race the night before.  I woke up thinking, maybe everyone will have heard about the hills and decided not to come.  If no one fast shows up maybe I can take it at a little easier pace...  Of course as soon as I arrived at the packet pickup I started seeing fast runners.  If I really wanted the points for winning I was going to have to run up those hills hard.  I felt like I had a bit of an advantage though since the race took place in my own neighborhood.  I knew those hills really well even if I generally try to avoid them.  I was hoping that was enough to help me get the win.  I took off pretty fast and although I let a couple women go ahead I was trying to keep them in my sight and hoping to catch them on the hills.  By the time I got to the first big hill, about 4 1/2 miles in, I was in 2nd place.  The girl in first was the one who beat me at the Ogden Marathon last year and I knew she was going to be hard to beat.  She had a pretty good lead on me but I knew I had three miles of climb to catch her and I was slowly doing it.  I passed her shortly into the second big hill.  My legs were screaming at me by the time I reached the top and a quick glance back told me I had a good lead but I also knew she was a great downhill runner.  Could I hold her off with three miles to go as we made our way back down the hills?  I was running as hard as I could, with my fastest mile about 5:30.  I passed my house about mile 8 and my kids were outside cheering for me.  By the time I got to the 9 mile marker I could hear the girl behind me.  She had almost caught up to me.  We made a turn and had to head up one more hill before the finish.  It was short but it was steep and I felt terrible.  I really didn't know if I could make it up.  I thought I was beat.  But a couple of my friends were waiting for me there and encouraged me.  I made it up and just kept pushing as hard as I could to the finish.  I could still hear the girl behind me, I thought, and kept waiting for her to pass me.  I made it across the finish and held onto my first place.  I turned around to watch second place come in only to realize she had dropped back on the hill and finished 30 seconds behind me.  It was a guy right behind me pushing me to the end.  I broke my own record on that course by 4 1/2 minutes with 1:03:04.  Only four men in the race beat me.  My average mile pace was 6:18, not bad considering there is about 1000 foot gain in elevation gain on the course.  I won a Striders gift card that I put toward a Garmin I've been wanting to buy.  I felt like I had raced harder than I had in a long time and paid for it the next week with some pretty sore legs.

Next up is Boston and I feel like this race gave me a lot of confidence.  My goals for Boston are to finish in the top 100 women and run under three hours.  The weather has been warming up and I'm so excited for spring running!  I'm also excited to be part of the utahrunning.com elite racing team this year.  More about that is coming in future posts.