Monday, July 25, 2011

We didn't die!

Well, Indiana Jones was wrong about them dying in Temple of Doom, and his animated gif was wrong about us dying in the Red Eye Relay. I did hit the wall after 16 of my 19 miles, but I did finish, even if it wasn't a pretty sight. In fact, during my first two legs (7 and 6 miles, respectively), I felt surprisingly good. I had done one run at 6 miles and one at 7 in the past month, and those were the extent of my "long" runs, so I really can't complain.

The pace was way better than I thought I'd manage--9:40 for the first leg, 9:13 for the second leg. The last leg was okay for about the first half--I want to say around 9:15-9:30 pace, and then I simply hit the wall. Even with walking up the hill on  Boltinghouse, I was still averaging 10 minutes per mile at the top, but I was finished after that. I don't know my final time because I didn't stop my watch when I finished. I'm not concerned about it--I eked out a WAY better performance than I thought I was capable of, especially with the excessive heat warning. In the end, all I promised to do was physically cover the distance, so I think I surpassed that!

Mark ran as well--he had a total of about 14 miles and ran all three of his legs solidly, despite the fact that he's been running even less than me.

Should you ever run this relay, I highly recommend TRAINING FOR IT. It's far more fun and you notice the hills far less--meaning you can enjoy the beautiful scenery and camaraderie of your teammates that much more.

Here's a few pictures from my first leg, taken by my teammate Maggie:




At this time (about 8:00 p.m.), the air temperature was still 88 degrees and the dewpoint 72. I don't remember the heat index, but I probably don't want to know. The people running earlier in the rotation certainly had it much worse, and in many cases, had much less shade.

So what now? A few days off from running, for sure. Maybe more, but I'm so annoyed with myself for doing this while undertrained that I might be motivated to get back into regular running. I'll play it by ear, as usual.

2 comments:

L.A. Runner said...

I did my first relay this past Feb and it was so much fun! I can't imagine having to run in the middle of the day in this weather, though. Bleh. What's up for you, racing wise?

Ps. and I think I lost your blog for awhile, but now I have it and linked it to mine. :)

Marnie said...

Great job keeping up the running Miranda! I know it seems twice as hard in the heat, and those are some long stretches of relay miles. This sounds like a fun challenge though, I'll have to try a relay sometime too.