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Monday, February 6, 2017

Breaking the 3:12 curse

After two races at 3:12, I was ready to shake that monkey off my back.
Even though it was a warm, humid day.
Even though I felt really bad from the get-go and almost dropped out twice.
Even though my Garmin is so completely erratic and inaccurate now that it's just a fancy stopwatch.
Even though the lakefront was just as tough as I remembered it to be from last year.
Even though my poor pacing ran me right into the wall.
Seeing David on the course early

As my pace climbed into the 8's, I calculated to my chagrin that I'd be running close to 3:15 if I stayed at this rate of slowdown. I still had miles and miles to go, and I was beat, hot, weak, and miserable. Even considering a "best pace scenario", with no slowing down and a fast finish, I'd run a 3:12. But I just didn't want another 3:12.

Somehow, yesterday I was able to hang on.  I saw my times drop back into the 7:50s, 7:40s, 7:30s. I got all the way down to 7:17 at mile 25. I couldn't quite get under 3:10, but I ran a 3:10:14 for sixth female overall. I was thrilled.
Now, lots of rest before the Crescent City Classic 10k, my next race!

7 comments:

  1. Congratulations on a great race! I know I already said it on insta but you should be REALLY proud of that 3:10 on a tough day. Great job and hope you get some recovery before the 10K.

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  2. Yeah!!! I heard it was a tough day, but a surprising number of my Dallas running friends had great races as well!

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  3. Congratulations! Way to push through!

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  4. Way to go! What could you do under ideal race conditions?? That sucks that your watch is giving you so much trouble, though. Can you return it? That just seems odd that it's so off!!

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