Hell of a Weekend: Hell of a Half (Race 1 of 2)
Post-race photo of me with D and the RD, Scott Newton from Sole to Soul.
Wow, it’s Monday and I am still on a high from this weekend’s races. I went from just having a typical marathon training weekend to all of a sudden racing two half marathons – one road and one trail. Now that this weekend is over, it will be time to focus on my marathon that is only three weeks away.
HELL of a HALF – Exeter, CA
This last minute race turned out to be a great decision. It was my ego that prevented me from running any short road races as I prepared for my marathon. Let me explain. My current marathon training schedule isn’t a typical marathon training schedule because I am also training for a 50K and a 100-miler. The differences in my schedule compared to a marathon only schedule are that I don’t do track workouts on Tuesdays, I instead run intervals on the road, and I do back to back (hilly) trail runs on Saturday and Sunday (like ultra marathon training). It’s been an adjustment, convincing myself that I don’t need to run 5:35 mile repeats on the track and that the trail running won’t slow me down. I really believe in my coach (Andy) and this program and I know my coach believes in me so in reality, I have already accomplished big things! In fact, I am lucky to have him because I am sure it is not easy to train someone with such varying race distance goals! So going back to this race, I didn’t feel half marathon ready, but I knew I could run a half at 6:35-6:45 pace based off of my recent tempo and MRP workouts. Of course, I had to pick a scorching hot and hard course (two hills about 1.5 miles each around miles 5.5 and 9.5-ish) that wasn’t stacked with speedsters like the men’s side…it was definitely not going to be a PR day but that wasn’t going to keep me from having a great day and experience! The goal for the day was to do my best running 6:30-6:40 pace and finish the race using the experience to build my confidence for my upcoming marathon. I was also VERY excited to be able to see Andy and all my teammates from Bakersfield, not to mention the opportunity to support one of the best running stores around in the Central Valley: Sole to Soul. (more…)
Trace B. 