Cowboy Hazel

I ran my first ever indoor road race today. I imagine it will be one of the only ones as there aren't too many indoor roads around. It was a very cool experience, the best of both worlds, in a lot of ways. There was no sun or wind to deal with but the course was much wider than an indoor track and didn't involve that tiresome repetition.

Even beyond the pleasant novelty of the course, I'm fairly happy with how the morning turned out. I finished up in 18:37 (unofficial still), which is a 5:59/pace and the first time I've ever dropped under 6's for anything over 2 miles. I don't have split times because Guadalupe didn't work in the tunnel and had a big "Not Connected to Satellites" alert covering up the times.

The course elevation was like a big U and we started on a serious downhill. I really didn't know what to expect for my time because I haven't run a 5K on fresh legs before (my last couple have been either the day after a 20+ mile run or the day after another race), so I decided to aim high and try for a sub-18. Accordingly, I took off flying. The cool air, the downhill, the excitement of the start led me to a first mile that was probably under 5:30.

I started to struggle a bit as we approached the turnaround. We hit our first uphill portion and the air got warmer and warmer as we approached the daylight. It was a very strange sensation to be running out of the darkness and into the daylight, only to turn back around and head into the darkness again. At the half, I was in about twentieth place.

I picked back up on the downhill and passed a couple people but I still wasn't running as fast as the first mile. Also, I was really starting to get light-headed and worried if I would be able to even maintain this pace for the final mile.

The last hill was brutal. I had pushed myself as far as I possibly could and I felt like I was about to pass out. I had to pull back a bit because I knew that if I didn't, I would simply collapse. It was such a strange feeling – My legs had it in them to keep going faster, but my head didn't. I wonder what this is? And how to overcome it?

When the clock came into view, I realized I might not even make my secondary goal of 18:38 (6:00 pace) and wanted to give a burst, but couldn't even do that. As I crossed the finish line, I was struggling just to stay upright and not vomit like at Scotland.

I haven't seen the final results yet, so I don't know where I placed for sure, but I think it was around 30th. I definitely slipped a few spots the second half of the race.

I hung around to watch the second race (all the 25-minute-plus folks) and then caught the shuttle back to Port Authority. By then it was over 80 degrees and my 6 mile run home became a real struggle. I managed to keep up a 7:12/mile pace, but it was tough.

Seeing how badly I'm reacting to this heat is giving me second thoughts about Chicago. If I get into New York too (please lottery gods, favor me), I might just do Chicago easy as my last long training run instead of running it for real.

But, let's not get carried away. Right now, I just have to keep focused on Delaware. 3 weeks from today I'm going to run my first Boston Qualifier. I'm pumped.