2007 ARA 20 Mile Race

The day started with me hitting the snooze I think and not remembering it (I do that a lot). When I finally got up, it was 5:15, or 30 minutes after the time I planned to get up. I thought I was going to be late to meet my carpool. I rushed in to get ready. Fortunately I set everything up before, but then the BodyGlide was missing. PANIC – then I found it. I stepped out of the bathroom ready to go at 5:05 by the kitchen clock. WHAT? It seems when I hit the snooze in my sleep, I must have also hit the button next to it which fast forwards the time – so I was not running late like I thought.

I met up with my carpool at 6:00, and got to the race start a little after 7:00. I did a quick warm-up, and then the race started. It was the same course as the Darnd’st DU bike ride I did last year, but it was a little different running it. I kept close to my target pace through the half way point, but thin I started developing a blister by mile 12 and started slowing down. Perhaps also the runs I missed while traveling are catching up to me. Miles 16-18 I was really slow. At one point, I pulled a muscle in the back of the neck. A cop saw in his rear-view mirror my contorted body while I stopped to recover, and he backed up down the street to check on me. But I recovered and moved on. I fell into a bit of a Zombie daze and really slowed down until one woman in my training group caught up and pointed out we had less than two miles. This woke me up when I realized we could see the outlet mall on the left. I think I said something back, but I am not sure if I was coherent, but I did sped up a little, but it was painful and the last mile was slightly up hill. Then my Pikes Peak Coach was at mile 19 and he reminded me I had suffered through runs in worse conditions, and so I could not slow down there. Crossed the final hill and ran down though the finish. I had run the Buda version of this race 3 times as a 30K (18.6M), and this would have been a personal worst or close to it for that distance. However, since this is my first 20 mile race means it is a PR for this distance.

Thanks to Julia, Sean, and Tim for coming out to cheer us on even though they were not running.