6.2:00.49.09

So, the girl and I went to Cleveland this weekend to hang out with her parents, and while we were there, run a race with her dad. Altogether, a really nice weekend: good food, really nice company, got to see where girl grew up (the lake is beautiful!) and meet her maternal grandparents. It's also nice to know that Super Puppy still recognizes me after a month, grin...

Right. So, the race: altogether, I'm pretty pleased - I beat my "realistic goal" again - ran it in under 50 minutes , hence the title - but didn't quite make my stretch goal of under 48 minutes. Definitely motivated going into the summer to work hard on my speed endurance to get my time down for some of the fall races I'm planning to run. This was a really straight, flat course - only two hills, really, and I did get to run down both of them. And it felt really good powering up that last hill, though I wanted to quit, without really breaking the pace. That said, it was also a really tough race in that it was really boring. The course ran out down a highway on one side and back the other. Nothing to look at, noone cheering. I really need to get my mental game into better shape as well, it would appear.

On a slightly related note, I just found out that the USATF amended their rules to allow headphones in non-championship events, though you still can't wear 'em if you want to win money. Terrible. I mean, I like running with my music just as much as anyone else, I imagine, but not so much on the day of the race. Those folks are just woefully unaware of the other people around them, which can be a pain in the big pack. And I'm certainly not fast enough to start and stay ahead of the pack. Though they do make nice targets when you need to find someone ahead of you to pick off, grin...

(Photo by mag3737, found on Flickr. Obviously from some race in Vancouver)