Monday, April 16, 2012

Rumble Grumble

Finished the Peterson Ridge Rumble 20 miler yesterday in 2:41. Overall, I had a blast running the trails and I was pleased with my time. It was a beautiful day with some stunning vistas of snow covered Cascade peaks. It was also exciting to be around a stacked up field of runners. In what other sport can you just walk up and pay a few bucks and be competing with superstars? I can't think of one.

On to the grumble:

I blew this race. I was flat out of gas in the last 2.5-3 miles and a lost a good 4-5 places as I slowed down to what was surely my slowest pace of the entire race despite it being the flattest, least technical portion and jogged it in. As I watched 40 milers come in to the schoolyard nearly sprinting it became even more obvious that I had messed something up and should have been reeling in the end instead of wating for it to come to me as I trotted. In looking at the folks passing me I had thoughts like those put down by G.Z.'s blog coincidentally discussed today.

http://georgezack.blogspot.com/2012/04/six-be-smarter-dummy.html

It's time to stop using the watch as I have been (almost exclusively as a tool to measure just how fast can I get this 8 mile workout done?) and start setting up some smarter workouts using variable paces (nice and slow at the right times and a bit fast at others).

At less than a month to the Mac 50k, wisdom will have to come a bit quicker than usual.

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