Medal Monday #2 & Race Recap

Conversation from 2/8/16

You know that moment when you weren't going to sign up for any new races this season but at the last minute decide to do one since your training plan called for 6 miles anyway?  No?  Just me then.

Friday night I decided to run a small local race the following morning to support a family friend who helps puts it on.  I've done this race twice before.  Its in Norco, CA and runs along the Santa Ana River, so a whole lotta nature.  They only give medals to those who place in their age group, but will usually give a ribbon or pin, or something like that to all finishers.  This year it was dog tags!

The race is about half rolling hills and half flat, with the steepest hill at about a 7% grade.  The last portion is the relatively flat part, so while its nice to get the hills out of the way at the beginning, you have to also save some energy to finish strong.

When I say this was a small race, I mean it.  With only 100 people in the 5k and 30 in the 10k, its definitely the smallest race I've ever been a part of.  This pretty much meant that as a back-of-the-pack runner, there were very few people around with me.  I had 2 women in front of me and 1 man in back of me for pretty much the entire race, and I must say, that was really good motivation to keep moving.  I tried to keep the distance between all of us steady, which was difficult during the hills.  Once you hit mile 2.5 there's a half mile of uphill that turns a bit at the top so you can't see the top while you're going up it.  And you only go back downhill about halfway before you turn and it levels out again.  And then the stretch before the mile 4 marker....oh man!  At this point the 4 of us were at our closest to each other, but it was also a moment of truth for all of us because it was the steepest hill of the race.  I was determined to not take any walk breaks, especially since I didn't want to fall behind.

Now, I should say that while my training plan did call for 6 miles, it called for an "easy" 6 miles.  I don't think these hills exactly qualified as easy but I figured if I was going a comfortable pace, I would be fine.  And being my longest (and fastest) run since LAM, I must say, I was proud of my pace.  I felt super strong until mile 4.7 when the course had been flat for about a half mile and I started feeling the pace. I didn't hit a wall by any means, but I definitely started to feel the heat of no shade and was ready for the race to be over.  What got me through it?  I told myself, "Megan is running a full marathon right now, get over yourself and finish!" I picked up the pace and got moving. 

My last 4 miles were negative splits (meaning each mile was faster than the previous one) which was super awesome and had me feeling stronger than I have in awhile.  In fact, I got 1st place in my age group, which means I got a medal!!  Super awesome since last year I got 2nd in my age group! Next year I'll be moving up an age group, so definitely have a new 10k goal. As a slower runner, I know my chances of placing are beyond slim.  But small races are a great way to improve those chances and give yourself a great boost of motivation.  Its not about the medal or winning, but getting a little something extra for miles I had to run anyways is always nice.