Sportybrains

I should title this post "How to do your best in 80-plus temps after weeks of some killer training"! But that is a bit long, and perhaps contains one too many excuses. At any rate, I would qualify this as one of my first "true" training races; Coach Bill put me down for 8 on Monday and Coach Tim (do I have too may coaches??!) provided a 2800 meter swim containing a fair amount of kicking (I actually nailed my last decending 100 in 1:27; perhaps one of my fastest yet. As much as I actually like doing kick sets, it did cross my mind more than once while crossing the pool yesterday "I wonder what this will do to tomorrow's race"....

After riding down to Baytown, about an hour away from my place last night with some friends the morning of the infamous Bud Heat Wave was rather uneventful. I'll admit, the sport psychology girl was entertaining quietly some doubts about how much I could actually bring to this 5-mile race known for scorching temps (spoiler: the post-race makes it all worth it:)) after my awesome race 10 days ago and an eerily awesome track workout one week ago. That being said, I remained mostly positive and especially excited to see Irene and Becca, two awesome ladies who I coach, each put in their first race since giving me the reins.

I woke up, had my ritual coffee and opted for a PowerBar Performance instead of my usual oatmeal. I eat these before morning swims ans they seem to provide plenty of energy when it counts. Curtis's cousin was nice enough to put us up for the evening, so I wasn't about to trash their kitchen. Arriving at the race start, everything was well laid out on this point to point course and the volunteers were fantastic. After my warmup routine/coaching duties, we were off.

The first mile felt like running through butter. I went through in 6:14 trying hard to hold back-I have to say it is nice sometimes to start a run without riding a bike first! I felt decent for the first 3 miles before my heart rate started climbing... and then climbed some more.

The volunteers and the placement of the aid stations were excellent providing sponges and water, although in hindsight I should have slowed it down and taken more than a sip at each aid station. I once choked in a 10k and since then have trouble drinking a lot in shorter, faster, races. I held onto the pace at 6:25-6:35 for a bit and then it started jumping around some. Somewhere around mile 3.5 I remembered why I typically don't like using a Garmin, at least in the summertime-I was not feeling my spryest and was just hanging on to a sub-7 pace for the last couple miles or so. I found some legs left at the end, but started in 4th overall (female) and ran the entire way in that spot. With the triathlon training I wasn't quite able to catch the speedy On The Run team girls on this day.

Got rest? I ended up rolling across the chip mat in 33:30 or 40 something-I was doubled over right after so I'm not really sure! Ahem, note to self, drink more water!! I give myself on this race an 'A for effort. Would I have liked to go faster? Sure. But that is summer racing amongst tri training. I typically don't race so close together and especially off of so many training hours so I'd be a fool to flog myself for my performance. I proved to myself just over a week ago that my running is in a decent place.

What I did get out of this race is that I can put up with a time that I formerly would see as "sub par" and see the big picture. Today was fantastic run training for the Clear Lake International Triathlon next month and I still have about 6 weeks to really go to work.

I also won a nice little beer mug (since the race ended at a Budweiser distribution center and all) for 1st F 25-29. I also had a good time chatting with my athletes, running group mates and people I haven't seen in a while. I am super proud of my runners-both did great and Becca finished her first 5-miler, meeting her goal time to boot! It was a neat experience seeing athletes I coach out on the race course today. I enjoyed perhaps as much as competing today.

Proud of you girls!! 


All in all-a decent effort today, a lot of fun, and I managed racing in a state of less than preparedness. All part of the process. Great job on a nice race to RD Robbie Sabban, Jon W., and of course, Coach Bill. Happy 4th of July!

Stay the course.