The Finish of Spring: The Loudoun Street Mile

I drove to Winchester, VA, for an assault on my first road mile race.  It sure was fun, and over so quickly!  I am certainly not a miler, but I was curious to see how fast I could go for a road mile off of the training I have done.

The race started off crazy with people sprinting ahead of me before slowing down and me having to make sure not to run into them.  I stayed patient and remained somewhere around 10-15th place.  The first quarter mile is downhill so we hit a fast 63 split, but then immediately uphill again for the second quarter mile(68), hitting 2:11 for the halfway point.  Over the hill, we slammed down towards the third quarter mile(jesus this race is already almost over...I thought...and I felt like I was just warming up).  Over the third quarter I pulled ahead of several runners, and worked my way up, passing through in 3:19(68) with a quarter left.  I probably was around 11th going into the last quarter mile, but I punched it hard.  I sprinted and gritted it out, passing a GRC guy, some other dude, and friend Brian Flynn who had gone out hard trying to hit top 5(which earned cash prizes).  I ended up finishing in 8th place.  As I crossed the line, I was certain I had run around 4:23-4:24.

Well, unfortunately, the race timing got screwed up big time.  Go figure.  In a 4 minute race, where every special second counts, it gets screwed up.  My watch seemed to be on schedule with the clock, so I don't know how they lost 2-3 seconds for most people's times.  Flynn thought he had gone 4:25, and is at 4:29, while I'm at 4:26.  To be conservative, I'm calling it a 4:24, if not faster.  But 4:24 is a PR, so I'll go with that.  Seriously, most races I have a pretty good idea of what time I ran before results are posted.  But these results seemed very wrong.  At least they got my place right(or so I think).

The spring season is over.  And I feel pretty good about it.  I would have liked to PR in the half marathon this spring but I was very very close.  I think I needed to run a couple of 1:08 halfs before I can make that next jump.  Adapting the body is necessary before the next push.  I ran 80 miles this week.   I feel good running more again.  I need to.  I am working my way back into the high mileage zone again.