A vision for my life - Because what we focus on expands

Saturday, October 6, 2007

A good, although wet start.....

to IronWeekend....

This weekend started out with the Marine Corps 1/2 marathon, plus an hour tacked onto the end, making my 3 hour run reasonably entertaining. It was raining throughout the whole race, but what are you gonna do?

My plan for the race was to keep my heart rate in zone 2 for the first hour (155ish), zone 3 for the second hour (165ish), and after the finish, to run another hour in zone 2 again.

My plan worked perfectly, giving me a great negative split for the race. I really enjoyed the second hour, passing LOTS of people. Although this was a training run for me and not a race per se, my competitive spirit kicked in the last few miles and I broke two hours.

Although I finished a few minutes slower than last year, overall the race was much slower. Last year's time was 1:52:08, which was good enough for 34/81 in my age group and 275/606 overall. This year's 1:58:41 placed me 22/82 in my age group and 177/550 overall.

I'm admittedly a bit surprised at how well I did, since my focus has been on biking and swimming much more than running, and I went so easy for the 1st half of the race. I guess it really is all about the bike.

I really enjoyed the hour I added to the end, as I did the course backwards and got to encourage all of the BOPers that were still finishing. That was probably the highlight of the race, and made the last hour go by pretty quickly and painlessly.

After watching Maryland hold on to beat Ga Tech (FEAR THE TURTLE), I DRAGGED myself to the pool.....1:36 and 4300 yds later (2.44 miles, ever so slightly farther than the IM swim), the day was at long last done. I did a continuous swim, stopping after 45 minutes for a quick drink of water. The plan was for 4250; somewhere I added an extra 50. Better too long than too short.

Tomorrow Ironweekend continues with a 112 mile ride followed by a 1/2 hour run...should be thrilling after trashing my legs breaking 2 hours today....in hindsight that may not have been the best idea....I guess I'll find out in the morning....

Live with purpose....Enjoy the adventure....

4 comments:

The Stretch Doc said...

how the bike ride go after the leg thrashing?

rockon`

The Original MAJ said...

A sub-2 half is a great time. I appreciated the rain. ItT kept me cool! If you were the dude in the half Ironman hat, you're HUGE! (Umm, I mean that in a good way)

The Original MAJ said...

PS - hmmm . . . maybe I saw you running the course in reverse. A couple guys did that and cheered me up. BTW, see, it IS a new trend - THE REVERSE PR BABY!

FunFitandHappy said...

Guilty as charged Megann Ann...I ran back through the course for about three miles, and really enjoyed encouraging everyone who was still finishing....it definitely made adding on an extra hour of running much more tolerable....