Monday, July 15, 2013

Self-defeating Prophecy

Perhaps I settled into an easier pace because of my self-defeating prophecy.  But more likely an accurate assessment of my current state of fitness.  I thought I was pushing a decent pace and tried to stay relaxed yet mile one was still in the 6:50's so very unlikely for me to pull that back to 6:40ish average in only one more mile.

The 2 mile race on Saturday certainly revealed that my idea of breaking the over-60 record for the race does not occur with three weeks of speed work.  My body is too conditioned to long, slow miles.  Another revelation regarding this attempt was, this is my 1st race of the year and I had only run 3 races last year...so it's safe to say I'm out of practice.

I won my age group but missed the record by over a minute and a half.

The rest of the weekend was a lot of fun but also some work.  Setting up for bicycle races and corner marshaling. Then helping follow the Cat 3 riders of the 83 mile road race.  Saw some nasty accidents and helped the guys get their bikes back together and back on course.  

My wife watched some of the finishes including the winner of the Pro/Cat 1/Cat 2 race have a mechanical breakdown (endo when he stood up to sprint) within sight of the finish but enough of a break-away to run his bike across the line for a podium finish!



Just got some miles in on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday so finished the week at 48 miles.

Today is my 61st birthday and I got up early to help re-stack all the borrowed barricades from the bike race then got out for 9 miles.  The trail-side vegetation is changing and I was distracted today by the opportunity for fresh, wild raspberries.

Sumac is starting to show it's color.

Black raspberries are coming on.

Interesting how as an individual I still age 1 year at a time...as a competitor I now only see significant birthdays in 5 year intervals!




1 comment:

  1. Happy B-day "McDuff!" Keep your nose at the racing stone and I am sure the times will come (course, you know that ...)

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