The blog has been pretty quiet lately so you guys won't mind a report on a road race, right? Anyway, I headed up to Howard County this morning to run the RRCA Club Challenge (btw, it only took me 35 mins speeding on back roads to get there...) which is a very hilly and low-key race that I've run a few times in the past. This was the prescribed workout for Speed Development plus I wanted to see what kind of shape I'm in. If I'm going to race, I prefer the 10-mile or half-marathon distances anyway. Plus, I'd like to get some of my speed back and slow trail miles probably aren't going to do it. So that's why I headed out there... My plan (hope) was for 9 min miles or maybe a little better. I had to consciously let the fast people not drag me along... Carol, Katie, Cathy, Natalie, Bob... all planning on 8-8:30s. I successfully let them go and ended up running with Chris Richey who had run 17 yesterday and didn't mind slumming in the back of the pack with me! This race is VERY hilly and coupled with their typical misplaced mile markers, my splits were all over (not that I'd bore you with them anyway!). The miles clicked along until 7 when we turned into a serious headwind/snow shower which hurt the morale. Once out of that, I just hung on for the last two miles (10:40 and 7:20, wtf? I think they should be able to measure a little better than that...) and finished in 1:28:xx. So I met my goals, and am starting to feel like I'm getting alot of my fitness back. AND that predicts a 4:11 for Pittsburgh. I'd take that.. just need to get the miles in now!
Went out for some "hill repeats" up and down the steepest hills we could find in the park. This is along a utility line where we don't normally go. After a little exploring, found some extreme beaver destruction!
