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July 14, 2005
Progress
1) My new sneakers are fabulous. The first time I wore them was tonight. I quizzed the guy who sold them to me (from Fleet Feet in Adams Morgan in the District) as to if I could wear them for the first time in a race. I told him I had no other options. He said that the people who ask that question typically don’t have other options! He also said, “The sin of new shoes is not as bad as the sin of old shoes.” Since I really didn’t have a choice I wore them tonight and they were SPLENDID. The guy from Fleet Feet really knew what he was talking about and we even talked about how we both sometimes cut our sneakers. I specifically went to this store this time b/c I KNOW he is good from previous experience. (I should have gone there in the first place…) Also, my new sneakers are NARROW (Not WIDE like the Pegasus were. Those were just such a disaster.)
2) There was running progress. These are my four mile races over the past month:
June 21, Time: 30:29 (Course was short), First mile: 6:48, No Pace Since Course Was Short
July 4, Time: 31:38 First mile: 7:00, Pace: 7:55
July 14, Time: 30:24 First mile: 7:22, Pace: 7:36
So my first mile was the slowest today, providing the fastest overall time. AND, I wasn’t hurting at all. I didn’t really consider walking at any point and I felt fine afterwards. I also managed to drop two women I was running near at the end of the race. At the 3 mile mark I was just behind two women (we were running in a line) and I moved up next to the woman who was leading the three of us. She saw me coming and kept up pace with me and we sped up and dropped the third woman. With 400 meters left the other woman and I both picked up the pace and ran next to each other. With 200 meters left I kicked it home and put a pretty fair distance between the two of us. I am not sure how much distance b/c the final results aren’t up. I was super excited to be running near those other women though b/c they absolutely pushed me to run faster than I would have without them there. Plus, it was kind of exciting to actually have a mini race within a race since I am not usually near the front of races and rarely get to jockey for any sort of position :) But the two of us were definitely fighting each other and I totally felt like I was racing someone else and that I had to use racing strategy (ie. not kick too far from the finish) so that was kind of cool.
So I am happy. I have also learned my lesson about starting too fast. The 7:22 felt like just the right speed (though the overall pace would suggest I probably STILL should have started slower-or else maybe I should have run the rest of the race faster…). I guess the experimenting continues.
Posted by Audrey at July 14, 2005 09:43 PM
Comments
nice one.
Posted by: brent hopkins at July 15, 2005 12:41 AM
Awesome! I'm so glad you felt good about your race (and that the new shoes behaved well)!
Posted by: MandM at July 15, 2005 01:54 AM
Congrats, Audrey! Nice race and great job pacing yourself. It takes as much discipline to not go out too fast as it does to push hard in the end. Keep it up!
Posted by: Leilani at July 15, 2005 07:00 AM
I'm so glad the new strategy worked for you, just remember that in future races! (I think there are many lessons runners need to learn over and over again, and the going out too fast one took me a long time.) It's great to see that you're improving and good luck making even more gains.
I don't know when you'll be back in the Boston area, but I am moving August 15th and I would love to run with you when you get back!
Posted by: Alison at July 15, 2005 09:17 AM
Great job! Isn't it great to see some progress? I'm so glad you're doing so well!
Posted by: Nanda at July 15, 2005 10:26 AM
Way to go!! Good job with the negative splits and whatnot.
Posted by: Barb at July 18, 2005 03:05 PM