Episode IV: A New Hope

I'm done being irrational, thankfully. I look forward to a lot of good things.

Today was a very good day. I was happy to do a good race at the Medical Center 6K in Nashua this morning. Recently, I had the capability to run about 5:55 pace for 6K. The good news is, with untold days off, poor eating, and being 20 days removed from a marathon, I'm still able to run a 6K in 6:11 pace. Earth-shattering for my standards? No, but it is a damn good spot to be in on day 0 (tomorrow is day 1).

I started out conservative, as I had planned. I told myself that 6:10 would be a great first mile. The start was crowded. I was about 5 or 6 rows back and on the curb, so it was a little slow going, but I didn't let it bother me. I embraced the slow start, knowing it would help me hit a 6:10. I ran 6:09.

I decided to attack the uphills, and I did so rather aggressively. At first, I felt good about the decision, but by 1.75, my mind played games with me as I realized I wasn't even halfway through. By mile 2, I almost blew up. In fact, for the first quarter mile of mile 2, my Garmin had me averaging 6:50 pace. I figured that it would be a very unpleasant rest of the race.

Fortunately, the course goes more downhill at this point. It was still unpleasant, but I recovered enough to attack the downhill. By 2.5, I was averaging 6:33. Just like the Bradford Valentine Race, the much more positive thought of, "you can still salvage a good race", and actually I turned that into, "you can still salvage a decent mile". Sure enough, with thanks to some downhill, I ran 6:16. Not fast, but considering how I felt at mile 2, I was ecstatic. But this isn't a 5K. Would I have enough to finish strong?

The sun was beating down, but there were a lot of people around me to keep me motivated. It seemed as if time moved so slowly, but I stuck with it. It wasn't pretty, and my form suffered, but I managed to make it to the final stretch. I knew it was uphill, and I just tried my best not to falter here. I managed to make a few passes including a last second one at the line for a 23:05. I can certainly take that for today. This is a great place to be sitting at the beginning of a new training program. Lets see what I can do at the shorter distances.