this morning, i woke up at 0400 (mountain time!) all set to compete in the first stand alone, half marathon I've done in over 2 years.
i was scared. my legs were toast after beating myself up with some round and round on thursday and a 6 hour solo spanker of a ride yesterday, but coach said that was the point. i was to go into this race with tired legs -- i guess to mimic the feeling you get in the last leg of the IM. well, mission accomplished. my half hour warmup was painful enough. i had no idea how i was going to survive 21 km!
but this race was to be just as much a mental workout for me as it was physical so i put away all negative thoughts and decided to go with it and have fun.... no one was forcing me to be there.
the plan was (like always) take the first couple ssssllllloooowwww, which i didn't think would be too hard as they were up hill.
first mile = 6:34, darn it.
second mile = 7:22, better, but didn't feel easier because of the hill/wind. positive thought "what goes up must come down".
there were three of us at the turn around (about 44:30). once i knew we were heading back i had a burst of energy (or was that the gel???). time to see what i've got.
i picked up the pace sufficiently to drop the other girls and held on to finish ahead of them by two minutes in a time of 1:27:44 -- PB by 14 sec...
i was happy. and tired.
i was initially a little bummed, as i had wanted to see a time in the 1:26 range. but given the week i've had and the point i'm at in my training, i'll take it!
a little quote that put it into perspective -- while i'm definately not what i would call an elite, i'm trying to think and train like one so maybe someday.......
Amateur: Focuses on the time and how they wish they would have broken the time goal.
Elite: Knows they could have hit their goal if they were focusing on this as an important race and is very satisfied with no further thought of what the actual time was.
results: www.arizonadistanceclassic.com pics to come soon....
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