Pardon my excitement! Up until a month ago I hadn’t run more than 5 miles at once, and I had only reached that distance around August of this year after nearly 30 years of not being able to run more than a mile at once because of iliotibial band pain. Yesterday I ran in the 6.1 mile Boise YMCA Christmas Run. It all began with switching to running barefoot this summer.
I was able to run two shorter races completely barefoot before arctic temperatures made some minimalist footwear a wise choice. As with all shoes, there has been some adjusting to avoid many blisters, but continuing to work on good barefoot form helps even with that. Still, I ended up needing one piece of duct tape on a toe for the race.
My husband is my coach, and as such worked up a three week training plan when I, inspired by a casual comment from my cross country running daughter, decided to try the 6.1 mile race. A couple days of hill repeats on a nearby road, a couple days of increased distance up to seven miles, some stationary biking with intervals, then a week of rest and I was as prepared as I was going to be.
I am directionally challenged, so studied the race course over several days. When I had participated in the Lake Cascade sprint triathlon in August, I had ended up by myself through much of the race. Its a weird feeling. But for this Christmas run, that ended up not being a problem at all. I was constantly surrounded by people, being passed, passing others. Many people wore costumes and many were elves. I couldn’t tell if I was passing the same elf over and over, or finding new ones. It was all quite jolly, and I generally called out a merry “ho ho ho” when passing signs that instructed runners to do so. 😀
Besides increased distance, the course threatened me with a 1.5 mile up-hill section and a .5 mile steep downhill on gravel. I was thrilled to find that I could run the whole hill at an average pace of 10-11 minute miles. I know the barefoot form helped immensely with that. I could just tell that as I passed people I was not trying as hard as they were. Because it was my first race at this distance, my coach told me not to push it, especially up the hill, so I chose a steady pace that I could maintain. I really didn’t want to end up walking, which many others resorted to.
For the down hill, the bending of the knees combined with basically no added sole height of my Moc3’s gave me both stability and spring to my step. My biggest concern was not slipping. I decided to let gravity do it’s thing and enjoy the motion! It was my best downhill experience so far and I’m sure I was grinning.
I did start to feel some fatigue in the last two miles, but this was moderated by my recently healed husband coming alongside to run part way with me. He dropped to the side as I entered the final length. Right about then, two 40some ladies tried to pass me. All thoughts I had previously had about having given “my all” vanished from my head. I increased my pace to regain my lead. They passed me again. I broke into a full sprint, cut and swerved around a line of six walkers taking up most of the street (what were they thinking?!) and beat those girls across the finish line. I appear to be incorrigibly competitive, at the end of the race anyway.
I forgot to look at the clock or check my watch until sometime after a volunteer had gathering my race tag. I didn’t win any age group awards this time around (hubby says the good runners run the longer races), so had to wait until the results were posted today to know the all-important statistics. 🙂 Good news, though. I was 287th out of about 696 runners in the long race. I was 12th of 37 in my age group, the winners having times like 41, 43, and 46 minutes. I would have placed very comparably in any age group with my overall time of 51:20.2. Knowing from my watch that I reached the three mile mark with about 10 minute miles (near the top of the hill), that means I ran the rest of the race in close to 21 minutes! Seven minute mile pace! Cool!
