Double Bridge Run 15k 2011

Back in December, I thought if my legs responded to some speedwork, a 55 minute 15k would be possible. My assumption was that Mark and Stephen would run a time close to this. As for speedwork, after reading some of the Jack Daniels book, I settled on doing a session of intervals each week, along with a tempo and long run.

Week one of 800's with Johnny did not go well. Weeks 2 was mediocre 800's at Disney, then weeks 3 - 5 the 1000's felt great. One last session of 800's the week before the race did not happen. I tried, but the bike ride earlier that day had me wiped out.

By the time the race came around, I knew 5:55 pace was beyond reach.

At the starting line I found Chuck, Mark, Stephen H, Rusty, Jeremy, Steve C, Lee, and Tim. Not only was it cool to be around so many friends, but a many of them were very close to my pace. Last year I ran side by side Jeremy and Steve C for a perfect race.

This year I didn't plan ahead to run with anyone, but I figured some of those guys would be around. Of the 8 people I mentioned, about 4 were with me at mile 1. 6:12 was slower than I expected, but this race is too far for me to go out too hard. Over the next 3 miles, Stephen and I pulled away from most of the group, and Rusty started to pull away from us up toward Tim. We had just run 3 consecutive miles at my goal pace of 6:05, so if the next mile, which included the hill on the first bridge slowed us down, it wasn't a big deal. We actually ran that mile 3 seconds faster than goal.

It was after the hill at mile 5 that I told Stephen he better take off if he wanted to catch Rusty and the guys up ahead. Just 2 weeks ago he had run just under 1:22:00 half marathon, which I figured was well beyond my fitness. He did pull away by a few meters, but at mile 7 I was back up next to him.

Instead of continuing my 5:56 pace that I caught him with, we both held on to 5:50 for the next 2 miles. Both of those miles included challenging hills. At the bottom of the last hill we caught Tim, who had kept at 6:00 pace the entire race. Here I was in a race with 2000 people, and the only ones within 100 meters in either direction were 2 guys I train with every week.

Not that I expected to beat Stephen, but I knew that in order to, I would of needed to separate around mile 8, and I didn't. Right around mile 9 I heard footsteps and knew it must be him. I put on a small surge, but didn't expect to keep it, or separate from him. Not long after that he hit his finishing stride and coasted in 8 seconds before me and 4th in our age group. :( Rusty was 3rd.

All the times I pictured the last few miles of the race, not once was it as cool as the actual finish. Of course the end of a race is painful, but it's a lot easier when you are in good company.