My 30 K Race was a success...

I woke up still feeling sick and my resting heart rate was around 70 bpm, I was hoping it would have been in the 50's. I didn't know if it was because I'm not feeling well or pre-race jitters.

I got to the race with plenty of time before it started, it was pretty cold, windy and I was really nervous. I had no idea on how I would perform or how I would feel.

I had all kinds of questions for myself, like, is all the training I'm doing worth it? will it help my times? what if my legs fail me? was the pre-race run yesterday going to backfire? should I have swam yesterday? Etc, Etc, Etc, lots of mental "noise".

I decided my strategy was going to be to keep the heart rate around 144 bpm - 174 bpm and let the times fall where they may. For the first 10 K, I did it in 48:10, the second was around the same and the third 10 K was faster, even though there was hills.

For the last 5 K of the race, I was doing around 168 bpm - 180 bpm, overall I averaged 157 bpm. The entire race I felt good and had energy for a fast last 1 K, especially the sprint to the finish. My final time was 2:24:03, which is a 7:43.6 per minute mile pace. My goal was to do 8:00 - 8:10 minute mile pace.

Overall, I finished 532 out of 4409 finishing participants and in 91 place in my gender category.

It was my best running race since I started a year ago. At the half marathon point, I was around 1:41. If I was able to maintain that pace for a marathon, I would have finished around a 3:22:36, it would be quite an improvement from my 3:58 Philadelphia marathon.

At the end, my legs felt pretty good, bending the knees was not a problem. I can tell my legs had a healthy workout, but they don't feel like a quick recovery will be a problem. 30 K was the perfect distance, any longer would have been "painful".

I think this race was really important for my psyche, I needed to see some results from my "Mark Allen Online" training program. With no prior speed work, I thought I did really well. With speed work, it should only get better.

I'm so glad I did the race!