A handful for 2011

Saturday afternoon i headed Maybury State Park for the 8k classic. The race is 50% trail and the other 50% is the walking paved path.Knowing that 2.5 miles was going to be on the hilly trail section i was excited to give it a go. Plus this was my first 8k (4.97 mile) run.

I ran into a friend of mine Mark who was running it too. I asked if i could pace off him for the first mile so i could get a feel for what pace we were running. The plan was no faster than 6:40 on that mile. Once i get a pace i can hold it really close to even. Well Mark hit the first mile for us at 5:58 so much for a nice slower pace. At that point i just thought hold in it is a short race.

Coming into the trail section aka 2nd half i made my move on the other runners picking off six in the next section. Having run that area tons of time i knew where the three big climbs would be and could manuever them.

Overall i had a blast sprinting through the woods. Not sure how well each split was marked but watch showed my last split at 5:42. Being in the woods is my plan for the rest of all my running and with my overall time of 32:19 (6:30 per mile) it feels right to me to be on the trails instead of roads.

In the end i was exactly 5 minutes behind the overall winner taking 2nd in my age group and 13 overall.

For 2011 I now have "a handful" of PRs: 1 mile, 5k, 8k, 13.1m & 50k. It is turning out to be a faster year on lower mileage.

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