Dress Rehearsal

I ran the course for the Half Marathon this past Saturday. Wow is that course tough: even the downhills are hard.
A few notes for myself:
* The track along Fox Hollow is the most boring part, it takes forever. It looks a lot nastier than it really is, though.
* The downhill on Rock Road is no place to rest. It is steep enough to be technical in spots. Just remember to relax and let gravity do the work as much as possible.
* Just past the halfway mark on Rock Road is a very steep uphill. It's short, but it hurts. But you get a little bit of time to recover before the turn into Houserville Road.
* The hill up Houserville Road isn't too bad, just remember to save a little for the haul up Orchard Road.
* Orchard Road is a long hill, but it doesn't get serious until you see the intersection sign and go around the last curve. Park Avenue wasn't as nasty as it looked, and neither was Porter.
* One last thing: the final few hundred hards on Curtain have a slight uphill as well.

Road to Hope 5K (2005 Edition)

I knew going in that I was going to have a good run. But I was almost late getting there because people in this town cannot freakin' drive. As a result, I got a decent warm-up by running from my car to the check-in, and then to the starting line.

Unlike the course this race took last year, this course following the Arts Fest 5K course, which is of course the first half of the Arts Fest 10K course. This is a route I've always had trouble with (my previous best on it was about 23:40), although why I can't say.

Anyway, I got out fast, despite the fact that there was some kid running with a huge backpack who must have cut me off like four different times. I passed him just past a mile into the run. At any rate, I never felt really good running this race, but I was determined to stick with it. Any time I felt like slowing down (or stopping), I instead just tried to lengthen my stride until the feeling went away.

Hauling my butt up Hastings (about halfway in) was the hardest part. Although running up Shortledge (at the start of mile 3) was no picnic either. But I stayed with it: it's only three miles, I can take it. Finally I crossed over the IST bridge. I could see the finish line, and as the clock came into view I could see it had just turned over to 22 minutes.

I finished in 22:28 (a 7:15 per mile pace), setting a personal best since my return to running. I placed 23rd overall, and first in my age group (excluding the person who finished 2nd overall). I guess I should have stayed around for the awards ceremony.

You can see the complete race results here. Next up for my is the Half Marathon on December 4.