Spring Classic Half Marathon 4/04/09

I was a little concerned about this race a day or two ago, we decided to take it easy at speedwork Wednesday evening but it didn't work out to be easy. We ran a ladder up and down with a timed mile in the middle, with a 400 cool down after every fast lap, 400, 800, 1200, 1600, 1200, 800, 400 that all got faster than the first half. Then I thought I would take 2 days off before the half but it was a beautiful 70 degree day Thursday so Marsha and I ran 5.75 miles and I felt terrible with tight calves, sore knees and other minor things, then I woke up Friday morning with a sore throat. All the negative thoughts started running through my head, how could I PR with all this going on. Went to bed a little early knowing I never sleep well the night before a big event and nothing changed, woke up at 5:00 while the alarm was set for 6:00. We picked up Charles and arrived about 7:25 with a 9:00 start time. And what a nice showing from the MCRR group with 10 members present : Ladd, Marsha, Charles, Dan, Heather, Bailey, Debbie, Nancy, Jean and Phil. Dan and I set the Garmins and we were off, we decided to start off with a slow mile and started near the middle of the pack but ended up having to run out in the gravel and grass to get around everyone but then we settled in at right around a 7:00 minute pace. Still not crazy about double loops and windy days but we had a great race with Dan and I running the first 10 miles together til he picked it up. We both finished with new PR's with unofficial times of 1:32:15 and 1:33:15. I placed third in the 40-44 age group. Now for a few rest days and easy days to fully recover from a good effort.