A surprising result

Saturday was a good day. The first good news came at about 7:28am just before the start of the race when it looked as though some fast friends of mine from Asheville had not made the trip after all so the cash available for placing in the top three appeared to be more up for grabs than anticipated. The second good news came about 35 minutes later when I broke the tape (for the first time ever in a race!) and realized that I had run just three seconds slower than my time at Ukrops two weeks previously on what on paper is a much faster course. I got out well with fellow high 30s year old Aaron and we ran through the mile together before I was able to gradually pull away and press on solo for the victory. Aaron followed closely behind in a new PR himself!

I’m feeling pretty fit right now. After the higher mileage and longer workouts and runs that I was doing for my Half Marathon and then 10k training I am consciously scaling back my mileage and ‘time on feet’ in favor of shorter faster runs and faster 5k type workouts. As a consequence my legs are feeling better on a day to day basis and I am getting some good quality miles in. This will be my continued approach for the foreseeable future.

A significant factor in my relatively better performance at this week’s 10k was no doubt the weather. Whereas Richmond had been overcast and humid, Saturday in Charlotte was absolutely beautiful, a sunny, crisp Spring morning with no wind at all.

Oh, the vagaries of Mother Nature. Fast forward to Monday and we all know what happened in Boston this year! If 2011 will go down as having some of the fastest possible conditions for this race then it was of course the complete opposite for this year’s race. I started feeling sorry for my many friends who had trained so hard for this race towards the end of last week when the forecast started indicating the possibility of some awful heat arriving on race day and it was with resigned expectations that I signed up online to track them all on Monday morning. Sure enough it was sad to see most of my friends having inevitably difficult races on Monday. Marathons are ridiculously hard races anyway, adding heat into the mix is downright unfair and needless to say time goals went out of the window. Notable shout outs I have to include are to Jay Holder, 2:41 finisher and, incredibly, 96th overall, at Boston... and also to Dalena Mae Custer (Run DMC) who actually was speeding back up towards the end of the race, finishing in 2:58 high and an unbelievable 24th overall. But to mention just these two performances would be harsh on my other friends who battled away yesterday. Heroes and heroines all!! Proud of you!