Kirkland Race Report

I got the PR! I had a good run today in Kirkland, although I had a stomach ache most of the race...I had some restaurant food yesterday for both lunch and dinner and didn't think any of it was that odd, but it must have been. My stomach was just not happy this morning. Fortunately, my legs and other things were OK and by the time I was running, I had made enough trips to the bathroom and portos that I know it was just uncomfortable and I wouldn't have to stop...let's just say there probably couldn't have been any reason to by the time I was running...

Anyway, got to the race a good 40 minutes before the start, leaving plenty of time for several trips between the portos and the car where I could stay warm and read a little of the newspaper. My stupid GPS never "found the sateillite" so I ditched it and used my old watch with no HR monitor. Oh, well...good that I had the back up watch.

I tried not to go out too fast, but my split for the first mile was 8:10. Oops. I slowed down what I thought was a little, but my next split was my slowest of the day at 10:23...I was really wishing I had the GPS to see if the mile markers were accurate--there were a few that seemed too far or not far enough. But whatever, I just went on RPE and kept a steady pace without trying to push too hard. My new cue word for myself up the hills was, "float." The climbs weren't exactly easy (esp. the ones in miles 11-12), but I had the confidence of hill training behind me and tried to convince myself that I was floating up the hills. I did pass a few people and could hear some of them breathing harder than I was, so that was nice. In the middle, my stomach thing was really annoying and I thought I might not make my goal time...but tried to keep the steady pace going and hoped it would be enough. Miles 8 and 9 were a LOT of downhill (as I'd remembered from last year) and I tried to take advantage of it and let it go as much as possible on the descents. I got a nice complement around mile 9 when a woman said to the guy she was running with, "There's another one who makes it look easy..." I was glad it looked like that to her, at least...I wasn't pushing out of my mind, but easy it was not. I also had a nice chat with a guy who started talking to me about mile 10...he didn't know how many hills were going to be on the course, so I got to inform him that guess what, they aren't over yet. As soon as we hit the one coming up Market St., he told me to "have a good finish...." I wished him the same and said, "Go ahead and drop me, I know you're going to..." Well, he kept running right next to me and then I dropped HIM (aw, yeah, the float was working), and I didn't see him again.

I pushed last mile/fast mile and my 13th mile was a 7:44. Felt good about that.

In the middle of this race, I remember thinking, "I don't think I ever want to run a marathon...I need to remember that I'm thinking this later..."

It was a good hilly race and I'm really happy I hit the PR I wanted...it was about 1:30 faster than Tucson, my prior fastest (and Tucson was an all downhill course, btw) half and about 12 minutes (!) faster than my time on this course one year ago. Yea!

It took a while for my stomach to be interested in food...I certainly did NOT go for the Pizza Hut booth at the finish...but by the time I got home and showered, I was ready for a good mountain of food and will happily continue feeding throughout the rest of the day today.

Total time: 1:52:02

Mile Splits: 8:10
10:23 (don't think this was marked correctly)
9:20
8:46
17:44 (missed a mile marker, so this was 2 together)
7:37 (no way was that distance marked correctly, either)
8:07
8:27
8:11
8:32
8:07
7:44 :45ish seconds for the last .1