BACKLOG

A 2017 Race

I ran a race in 2017. I didn’t think I would and I wait to nearly the last moment to register.

I have four weeks of vacation to use or lose over the course of year. I try to spread them out over the year. Looking a head back in early January I had no plans of running any races this year. I did however plan my vacation time around local events that I could run if I so choose to. I also decided I wanted to do Dopey again in 2018, with that I’m trying to follow the ‘official’ runDisney training plan for the Dopey. Last weeks plan called for a 13 mile run, and it didn’t go well at all. I wanted to find a way to ‘recover’ and chose to run The Brooksie Way. I also hope that maybe I would be able to find away to have a fast half marathon to submit a better proof of time for the Dopey.

The last few weeks have been warm, I think that was part of the reason my 13 mile training run didn’t go well at all; race day would also be warm. My training run was on a flat course; The Brooksie Way is anything but flat, with the back end of the race rolling hills and a positive elevation gain. To be honest the hills are not that bad, if you run hills or trained for them — which I have not, Dopey is fairly flat.

Going into the race my current proof of time was 2:24ish. I know I went out fast and that is always a bad idea. In the back of my mind I thought I could go out fast and catch the 2:20 pace group and stick with them the most of the race. The 2:20 pace group went out three minutes before I did I should move up a coral for Dopey. I could then fad a bit towards the of the race if the heat wasn’t agreeing with me and I was confident I could run a 2:15 race.

The plan worked, the plan worked that is until the first big hill on the course, then it all went by the way side. Shortly after the hills I really started to feel the heat.

The bulk of the hills took place between the 10k and 15k mark, and if one looks at my Strava results my pace was fairly okay. The problem was I wasn’t able to get my legs going the next last 5k, I think I was also mentally done as well.