That's My Girl!!

So after deciding to compete at the Grand Rapids Marathon this year, one of my training partners (we shall call her 'Trixie') encouraged me to go for a long run.  16 miles was my farthest single run to date.  I did it, we ran a planned pace of 8:22, but after 3 planned breaks our overall pace was 8:30.   Good stuff, not too much pain.  I should have been doing these regularly.  It was fun, a bit painful, but a great marker of where I could be at for pacing during the marathon.

So Friday we ran the 16 miles at Kensington Metro Park.  Then Saturday I entered a 10 mile run - the Mint City 10 Miler.  I was told... again by Trixie, that this would be great for my marathon training.  I failed to see the real significance at first.  The 'plan' was to run at a 8:15-8:30 pace and see how it feels to run on 'dead' legs (named due to the previous days' run).

Before the race, I did some lite stretching.  I was very happy to see my chiropractor at the race site - he was offering free ART treatment to the runners.  Since he already knew where I needed the most help, he hooked my up!  I felt great... as soon as I was off the table.  I toe'd the line and the gun went off - I started out as planned, but simply felt great running.  I jumped up my pace and held 7:30's for most of the run.  The last 2 miles were mostly a slow grade uphill.  This caused me to slow down... funny thing: I slowed to my pre-race planned pace.  Near the finish the grade leveled off and I finished very strong with my last .25 mile at about a 6:11 pace.  Post race, everything felt good.

Then I took an afternoon nap on the sofa couch.  I may have felt a bit of discomfort in my legs at that point.  All is good, did some easy stretching and walked around outside with my family, and I'm good again. 

All in all the race was very well organized and there were plenty of volunteers across the course.  I was very pleased with event as a whole.  They offered a 5k run, a 1 mile kids runs and a 200 yd dash for the littlest runners.  Becky didn't have to do very encouraging to get Anna signed up for the run.  But at the last minute the RD changed the little kids run from 200 yards to a 300 meter dash.  Becky describes that Anna was a little gun shy at first, but once she rounded the last turn on the track, she was off like a bullet!  That's my girl!!  It won't be long and my little Sophia will be out running me as well.

Congratulations to Anna for a race well run!