Yesterday I ran a 12K PR at the Emerald Nuts Across the Bay race from which runs from Sausalito, across the Golden Gate Bridge, and into San Francisco. It felt great to get my racing season back on track after a really rough (i.e. slow and painful) 10 mile race a couple weeks earlier.
After Redding, I was struggling with my running confidence. Some recent runs and workouts felt like a chore to get myself out the door. Tuesday, I tried to fit my workout in between a busy day at work and a work dinner that night. Maybe I shouldn't have been surprised that when I rushed to log my primary workout of the week that I felt tight and tired. That day I punted on what was to be 2-3 sets of 1000, 600, 300 meter cuts downs after the first 1000 & 600 to give another go the next day. Wednesday I made it home from work, relaxed for an hour, then headed back into the park. As I was driving in, I had a thought - what about a cross country style workout rather than hitting the track again? Last fall I was focusing heavily on XC workouts, and I had some great road race results. Then what would you know, as soon as I get to the park, I see that the track is closed, so I grabbed my flats, jogged down to the Golden Gate Park XC course, and ran 2 loops of the course as a 3 minute on, 2 minute off Fartlek. It felt good to switch gears, running on the different parts of the course. I was able to move fast during the 3 minute intervals without over-stressing my body. I drove home with a smile on my face, all of a sudden enjoying myself again. Although I didn't appreciate that somebody stole my trainers while I was working out in my flat!
Heading into the race, I finally felt confident in the training I've logged so far this year. The course is a weird one as it's net downhill, but fairly challenging. You start the race running downhill, then climb up a long steady hill in the 2nd half of the first mile to the GG Bridge west sidewalk. Then once on the bridge the first half is a gradual climb due to the camber of the bridge, then you go back down. After the bridge as you're approaching the 4M mark you have a downhill section, but with some sharp turns. After that it's a few miles on the flats before one last moderate hill in the last half mile (with a sprinting downhill that leaves you less than 100 meters from the line. My plan was to take it really easy at the beginning and wait until around 3 miles to start racing.
When the gun went off I was behind most of my teammates. The pace felt very easy, but most the field wasn't too terribly far ahead. When we started heading uphill, I told myself to relax. I held my position on the first half, and just focused on a light relaxed stride the whole way up. As we go to the Golden Gate Bridge sidewalk, I pulled up to a pack of teammates including Jonah & Chris (who would be first place masters runners). I moved up a few spots with Chris, just gradually reeling in runners up ahead. By halfway across the bridge I caught Alan Jackson of the Rebels, who always runs a smarts race. We worked together reeling in more runners, and eventually pulled close to Todd Rose as we finished the downhill sections of the course. I really didn't have much going through my head early in the race, but dug in and ran fairly aggressively in the 3rd and 4th miles.
Once we got to chrissy field, I threw a small surge as I was eager to catch up to Todd. As I pulled right behind Todd, Alan kept surging and caught up to a group of mostly Aggies team runners just ahead. Having a spent a lot of juice to pass numerous runners, I tucked in right behind, then along side of Todd as Alan pulled away. I was breathing pretty hard, so couldn't say much more than "let's go" & he managed to grunt out "5:20 pace", which since I hadn't seen a mile marker yet, was good news. Shortly after that I see a large road construction sign, which I realize wasn't a road construction sign, but the 5 mile mark. I hit it around 26:30 (5:18 pace) & was pretty stoked to have a great race going both in terms of pace and position wise. At this point Todd had opened a few seconds up, but I just kept my eyes on him and tried to reel him in. While I lost just a second or two on him in the 6th mile (31:57) and 7th (~37:20) focusing on trying to reel him in kept me running a good pace.
Just after the 7th mile mark (with 0.45 miles to go) I hit the hill at Fort Mason. It's steep for the first 50 meters then slowly levels out. 2 runners - JT Service (an Aggie) & Stephen Donohue (who was 9th overall in the Dipsea last year) passed me as I pretty much stumbled up the first part of the hill. I told myself there was less than a half mile to go, and managed to keep Stephen fairly close. I pulled even closer on the downhill then gave it a good hard kick to get around Stephen right after we rounded the last turn with a flat 100 meter finish.
It's funny that I finished 16th place in each of the first 2 PA races. I would have so said no way I'd finish that poorly in Redding, and unlikely I'd run that well at this race! I was definitely happy with both my place, and my time - especially given that it's a hilly course. Last fall, I felt like I could run much faster than my old 12K pr of 41:54. But saying "I just lowered my 12K PR by 2+ minutes" sounds a lot better than saying "I could lower my PR by 2+ minutes!"
Next up will either be the Zippy 5K, unless I jump into a track meet prior to that.
Blue Sky
Between all the running and skiing, my aviation pursuits had taken a back seat recently. But after the race Sunday, I scheduled time with my instructor just to go for a flight. The dual purpose was just a proficiency check since I hadn't flown in a few months, but we also decided to use it as my "bi-annual flight review", which is required every 2 years to keep your license active. It felt great to get up in the air, and was happy that Bob (my instructor) had very little to comment on. We flew through SF International airspace on the way out, and Oakland on the way back. He had me execute a couple of steep turns - meaning a 360 degree turn to the right at a 45 degree bank, followed by the same thing to the left. It's one of the required maneuvers for the private pilot checkride. The key challenge is to maintain a steady airspeed and altitude. I think I pulled off two of my best steep turns ever! I look forward to flying much more often this Spring and Summer.
I'll save my health care / Pelosi rant for another day...
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