Summer series: a muggy two-miler

I'm on a little bit of a race kick right now, as you may have noticed! All of a sudden a ton of race opportunities popped up within a few days of each other, and I decided to just go for them all. None of them are goal races, so none of them have been very fast. Almost all of them have been run on tired, sore leg - and Wednesday's 2-miler was no exception. My legs were so trashed from a hard Tuesday night workout!

My race schedule looks like this:

Sat: Armadillo Dash

Wed: 4 on the 4th

Fri: All-comers track meet

Wed: Summer Series 2 miler

Sun: Spillway Classic 

Yeah, five races in two weeks. That's plenty. After Sunday I get a two-week break.

So, the two-miler: I hadn't planned to run it, because we have Bible study on Wednesday nights, but we ended up not meeting because so many people are out of town or just moved away (WAH, losing two good friends in one weekend!). With my schedule open, I ditched David (poor guy), and drove to City Park for the race. I had a really upset stomach all day, so much so that I wasn't sure I could run, but I reasoned that it wasn't all for nought because it was also early packet pickup for Sunday's Spillway Classic (which was a great idea, and I think helped the turnout for 2-miler as well). 

The art museum at City Park, post-race - what a pretty sky!

It was one of those miserable muggy evenings where rain threatens for hours, then finally there's a short, hot shower, and then it's just steamy. With mid-80's and 100% humidity, I settled for a short warm-up and ditched my sunglasses - they were just staying fogged up, anyway. I had no idea how I'd feel running, but I was definitely fatigued. I'd run 7.5 that morning, but even more importantly, I'd done nine miles of fartlek the night before. When I couldn't get my warmup pace under 8:45's, I knew I was in for a struggle. But then, sometimes I feel better once I start racing, so I got up to the line to start this thing! 

Sure enough, when the gun went off, my legs still felt sluggish. The hot, wet air made it seem like we were running through water, and my heavy legs only enhanced that impression. I pumped my arms a little to try to get my legs to turnover, and it worked a little. I was in a crowd of high schoolers, but I had started close enough to the front to avoid any serious boxing-in. By about a half mile, we had settled into our paces, and I was third female; the first was in eyesight, but far ahead, and the second was about halfway between us. She was a high school girl, and I hoped I could catch her in the second half. However, when the mile beeped at 6:07, I didn't feel like I had any more speed left. I actually started to slow down some instead. I worked to keep the distance between myself and the next girl the same, if not smaller, at least! With a quarter of a mile to go, I glanced at my watch and saw that my pace for this mile had dropped to 6:10 - not my intent - so I grimaced and tried to run hard to the finish. 

Somewhere along that last part I managed to accidentally hit stop on my Garmin, but the race is timed despite being a casual affair, and my gun time was 12:15. I can't complain about that! I should be able to run at or under 12 flat for two miles, but given my recent race and workout schedule, I was actually surprised to be under 12:30. A 12:15 is better than expected, and I think it's a promising sign that I could do that on tired legs. Also, I rallied well after initially slowing in the second mile, so that is also promising. If I can just stay healthy, I can see some PRs in my future!