Saturday, October 27, 2007

Running the crabtree creek rapids

After the rain for the past 2 - 3 days, the ground was saturated, so when the downpour of 2+ inches happened last night, there was no where for the water to go. Needless to say it was wet this morning. Not sure what I was expecting, but since I was going to do 10 miles today, I was told not to do anything hard, so the only not hard running around here is Black Creek or Shelley lake. I figured Black creek would be flooded for sure and I would have a slight chance of Shelley being ok. so off to Shelley.
Arrived about 7:30, on the way I saw many joggers so my hopes were high. Started the normal around the lake then out to the mall route but after 1/2 mile I was stopped by an ankle deep lake going right over the trail and no way around, so back to the start to go the other way. The trail out to the mall was great, not nearly as much water as I expected. I enjoyed watching the water from the lake flowing towards crabtree creek. Passed Viv running with her group, she looked like she was with the easy group, since they were on the way back and she looked fresh. I guess they are tapering for the race next week.
I was going slow and feeling kinda sore from my awesome thursday run so my idea to do 10 was hitting some disapproval from my body, but I just kept going. Then Joe Satriani started on the MP3 player and that was it, got lost in the guitar and the next thing I knew I was at 5.5 miles and the turn around spot. Got some fluid and a carbboom and decided to do a negative split on the way back. Picked up the pace and actually it felt better. The soreness went away, I concentrated on keeping a good running style and my breathing was not labored. My heart rate was around 150 every time I looked so right on target. 150 is the cutoff between zone 3 and 4 and where I want to run the second half of the race next week. I was running with the current and it was going pretty fast but I managed to stay ahead of it. I would find a piece of wood and race it from spot to spot to entertain myself. At McDonald's, The Guns and roses part of my play list started and Paradise City helped my maintain my under 10 pace until I got to Leadmine. I slowed a little in the last 2 miles, but still overall felt good about the second half of the run.
first 5.5 miles 11:13 / mile, after the mess of the first mile I was more around 10:30 - 10:45 but the first mile lowered the ave alot.
last 4.5 miles 10:16 / mile. Felt good here, This is a good thing for my mental state for next week.
If I can do a 2:10 half marathon next week I'll be freakin ecstatic, but just getting a PR would be good enough. I think my official HM PR is 2:16, but the first half of my marathon the beginning of the year was 2:13 something.

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