Photo from Mount Royal, Frisco, Colorado.

"That is happiness; to be disolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep." - Willa Cather

Friday 16 April 2010

Nike Testløb 1/2 Marathon Preview

My big weakness as a runner is I pay way too much attention to how fast other women around me are running and too little attention to holding an even pace. My excuse for doing this is "other women inspire me to run faster". But the truth is, other women inspire me to run my first mile at a 6 minute pace and then run the rest of the race more slowly on burned out, painful legs. Ultras are an exception, in which I tend to follow my intuition. Though even in those I often start out too fast (yes, May-Britt, you have witnessed this!).

The Nike Test Run half marathon is this Sunday. And this time I am going to do it right. I am not going to get mad if Tanni passes me. Or any other woman, for that matter. I am going to hold my cool. How am I going to do this, you ask? The balloon men. I am running with the 4:15 min/km pacers the entire way (or as long as I can). One of the positive things about such a huge race is the pacers. Garmins fluctuate so much (especially in this sort of race, where there are so many turns) that you can't trust 'em for pacing.

If I can stick with my men, this will put me at about a 1:29:40 half marathon. This would shave 4 minutes off of my PR time. It is ambitious but not impossible. Anything around 1:30 will make me really, really happy.

I wish I could preview SR's race, but he is saving his legs (no, not "shaving" his legs), maybe for the Danish half marathon national championship in 2 weeks. He is still feeling a bit affected from the 50k and is going to stay at home watching the kids. It is over an hour train ride to Copenhagen early in the morning, so I definitely understand his decision not to come. I have to pull myself together, though, and tell myself I CAN run the best race of my life without my Fast Bastard there. A cool thing is my friend Henriette just wrote and said she will be running, so that helps!

The interior of our apartment has just been covered in a thin, uneven coat of Nutella. I need to pull myself away from the keyboard vortex.

11 comments:

cherelli said...

Hmm, Nutella - can't the culprit lick the walls clean??? :) Have an awesome race - good luck with the pacing!

Tina Kristiansen said...

Hej
Følger dine skriverier med smil på læben;-o)
Kender godt følelsen af at bruge meget energi på at "holde" øje med andre (kvinder) og lade mig rive med. Løber dog langt fra dit tempo.
Ønsker dig al held og lykke med dit løb og glæder mig til at læse om din oplevelse.
Inspirerende blogg du har..

May-Britt Hansen said...

Well, the advantage of being born a slow runner is I never have to face your problem of going out to fast ;-)

I hope you´ll have a great race on Sunday. Just say like Steve Prefontaine:"The only good race pace is suicide pace, and today looks like a good day to die" :-D

Olga said...

I am with May-Britt on the explanation of my even pace:) You can do it. I trust in you. Hold your own. Be great.

Diana said...

One of my best marathon experiences was running with a pace group. It kept me nicely focused and on goal, most importantly it kept me from running the first half too fast. While I may be a really slow runner, I still have a crazy competitive streak that hates to watch others pass me. Bad combo.

Good luck at the race. I hope that you have a great time. I'll be cheering for you from afar.

Henriette said...

Glæder mig til at se dig imorgen, Tracy. Jeg kigger efter dig v start v 4.15 ballonen. Du seje tøs. Jeg selv prøver at følge 5.0 -men det holder sgu nok ikke hele vejen.

Have a great and fast race my friend.

Vi ses på Østerbro :o)

SteveQ said...

C'mon, admit it: You're having the Danish readers comment, just to show off that fancy alphabet.

My bedroom's the color of Nutella, perhaps I could babysit someday.

Ingrid said...

I am in awe of your upcoming PR! I wish that they had pacers at Kalamazoo - it's nice to have someone hold you back when you want to push to hard and push you when you think you're done. Good luck!

And I second having the culprit lick the Nutella off the walls - such a sad waste of a wonderful food!

May-Britt Hansen said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
May-Britt Hansen said...

Congratulations on the new PR 1.33.04 :-)

sea legs girl said...

Hey all, Sorry I didn't get to respond until after the race. But thanks so much for all of the well wishes and your offers to help with the nutella situation.

Tina, Tak for dit kommentar! Jeg kender dig også fra din blog! Forhåbentlig mødes vi en dag til et løb. Jeg kiggede på dine løbeplaner men vi løber ikke desværre de samme løb denne sommer, men tak fordi du gjørde mig opmærksom på så mange løbe, jeg ikke kendte i forvejen.

Maj-Britt, Great Steve Prefontaine quote by the way! I had to laugh out loud :).