The Snowbowl Road race last Sunday went well. It had rained
HARD overnight so the temps were nice and cool - could not have been better conditions (well, maybe a little less flash flood debris on the road but...) My "wouldn't it be amazing" (ie totally impractical) goal was to average 11 minute miles which would have given me a finish time of 1:17 and would have put me close to mid-pack. A quasi-realistic goal would have been to beat last year's time of 1:22.44. Neither goal was met, but I had a great race and left every ounce of energy on the course, such that when the last 300 yards of relatively flat dirt parking lot happened, and I tried for a final sprint to the finish line, there just wasn't anything left in my legs to sprint with.
7 miles and a bit of sidewalk to the ski resort patio/finish line (new measurement left the course shorter than advertised) and 2500 feet of elevation climbed in a time of 1:24.07.
Mile Pace
1 10.43 - gentle uphill for mile 1, starting elevation is 7000 feet
2 11.01 - incline increases noticably
3 11.49 - starting to climb for real - 1000 feet from starting elevation
4 12.01 - pass 8500 foot elevation sign
5 12.27 - am now passing a lot of people who passed me earlier
6 12.32 - yeah! A little bit of almost flat, then steep climb, go past 9000 feet
7 13.30 - last half mile climbs 500 feet and my legs are toast!
I was only 30 seconds behind Tom. I was really trying to catch him once I started closing the gap in mile 5, but I just didn't have it in me. At home, I tried to take a nap but my legs ached so much I couldn't doze off. I'm actually pretty happy with this result. Would have been great to match or beat my time from last year, but I knew it was unlikely as overall, I am running slower this year than last since I'm devoting a lot of workout time to other, mostly upper body strength and core work. Last summer I couldn't do pullups on the high rings, this year I can. Last year I couldn't do toes to bar, [decent] dips, or many of the other working sets that I am now doing a couple times a week. I'm calling it a fair trade
We had to make a "quick" trip to Utah, so jumped in the truck Monday to drive 10 hours, did a family thing Tuesday, and then drove another 10 hours home on Wednesday. Ugh - total inactivity and three days of serious quantities of chemisty: relentless high sugar, heavily processed food-like substances. Not to mention the total cognitive dissonance as in the car we were listening to
Fat Chance: Beating the odds against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease by Robert Lustig while imbibbing in our "sugared high-calorie beverages".
Tom had a terrible back spasm on Tuesday so this trip was pretty dreadful for him. This morning he thought a walk would help - did a nice relaxed walk around Shoe Hill with Tom and Nic (houseguest for a few more days). 3.2 miles walking today and planning to get back to normal eating of real food.