A little UPDATE number ONE.
Its been a great week + since i've been on here. Not necessarily the
best race result at the UW-L Home meet, but i can't complain about a
single other thing.
I don't know how to structure this , but i'll just start throwing things out there.
Oct 12 - Drove to La Crosse with Alan (3 hours from oshkosh). I met my
girl Nikki at the course to do some premeet action . We ran about 30
minutes . I felt GOOD. I was a little scared because my adrenaline was
going for about 48 hours before the gun went off for the race. I
couldn't help it. I was back home !!! I stayed at Conner's for the
night. HANDS DOWN BEST HOSPITALITY EVER for alan and I !
Oct
13 - RACE DAY. I didn't get to officially enter so there are no results
to prove my awesomeness (sarcastic here!!) But that doesn't mean I
didn't come with a team. The unattatched smily face box in front of the
big pole had the competitors of Brooke Ferguson, Nikki Cahen, Ariel
Perkins, a girl i never met, and Me. I'm thinking we would have been
close for the team title. Even in our old age.
The weather
was perfect. About 60 degrees, sunny, not much wind. The only not so
great element was the sloppy bog at the bottom of the course (around 2
miles) and of course the Hill. I've had 2 kind of races here at Tori.
Good ones where I magically make it up the hill and Painful ones which
I want anything but have to run another stretch after the 4K mark. On
this particular day, I got lucky with race number 2 kind; the sucky one
where the hill feels very unmagical and i hobble up then hope to just
not be passed as i think of all the much better things i could be doing
other than this race.
I warmed up with a 20 minuter,
watching the guys race. Then it was some strides and drills (limited
because I locked my water bottle in the portopotty and had to retrieve
it). I felt terrible in the warm up, which I considered a good thing,
because last race I felt effortless, and the race was anything but
that. I was confident going in that I could go for the win. I knew I
would not have the advantage with the fact that my legs had only been
feeling "normal" the past 2 days. But it was such a good feeling that I
almost forgot about how the crippled dead leg me was probably not
completely healed. Or the fact that my workouts were pretty limited
compared to my past shape at this point of the season.
The
gun went off and I got out to the front. I led with a small pack for a
loop, then thought, Oh well i feel pretty good, but maybe i should just
back off and sit behind them since the race was long.. so i tucked in
behind and noticed the pace back down.. looking back i should have just
ran my race. I felt my stride go into more of a shuffle, and i wasn't
as aggressive from that point on.. and I started to feel it early - as
we rounded the 2nd small loop (i didn't remember the mile, but i guess
i went thru in 5:47).. we headed down a rough terrain hill.. Usually I
dominate downhills. At this point, the girls were already making some
ground on me, and i don't know what i was thinking other than , "Dang
this hurts and i have more than 2 miles to go and up that hill". I lost
contact there and never got it back.
When we went into the
bog, i was sitting in 5th.. i thought, ok i'll come back as soon as the
ground is stable.. nope, another little girl passed me and I was not
feeling any better. . I tried to survive and maintain my place from
that point on.. The hill came and my legs were feeling like they had
weights and I could not get them to run normal.
Alan
was waiting at the top, and he told me later, he knew i'd be so
disappointed.. I finished in 6th holding off a pack of girls behind me;
the worst part was that i ran 22:28 (winner in 21:45) which was over 50
seconds slower than i had in 2005..
It wasn't that i was 50
seconds out of shape.. its just that i was not mentally prepared for
such a challenge and for this to be my first cc race in the middle of a
not so great training cycle. Then the fact that when I won the race 2
years ago, I was in SO much hurt, but I pushed beyond what i ever
thought just so determined to win.. I was behind for most of that race,
but once I got to the hill - it was only a race between me and one
other girl. This race I felt so far back that I gave up any hope for
the win .. but its something i need to work on and I appreciated the
opportunity and experience of the race. Nikki did have a huge PR, and I
had a blast being back in La Crosse with so many fans still cheering me
on.
The cool down was painful - i only did 28 minutes (suppose to be a
longer mileage run). Dang hamstrings! Alan and I hung out with all the
young kids at the cc party until we left at midnight to drive to find a
hotel (we could not have slept at the party house) .. we had a
Packer/Skins game to attend the next morning. :)
Sunday was
my day off. Just tailgating and sitting in the cold rain watching
football with Alan and the fam. SO MUCH FUN ! (and my first day off
since i had been sick over a month ago) - this better help! (and i
found out later that I did, along with a backing down of miles).
More in a bit...... break for a bowl of cereal (the best snack EVER).
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