Plan, what plan?

I'm slow this year. Yes, I realize fast is a relative term, I wasn't really terribly fast before, but this year I'm slower than usual.......it's really odd having people come up and comment on me being fast from before and asking what my plan, goal, time, etc is this year.  In reality, I have none, my only real goal is to finish the distances I've signed up for.  I'm not gonna say it's not frustrating but then again one can't expect to pull fast(ish) times out of their arse if they haven't done speed work in many, many months.  Shoot, half the time I go out to run now and I don't even have a specific mileage in mind other than anything over 3 miles much less having a set pace to do it in.  
But I do think after the past 2 races the "fast" reputation is long gone, LOL!!!  


So this brings me to the second race of the RRCA Grand Prix season, the Rivertrail 15k, I've never really had a great time at this race. It's always windy, rainy, or cold. Usually all 3........this year, we had moderate winds after the turnaround point, misty rain beforehand and 58F temps.  Short sleeve shirts and shorts were definitely the appropriate wear once you got moving and I was nearly begging for the mist to resume after about 3 miles.  And the no plan? Well, I'd settled in behind Brenda and one of the younger Cruisers (who IS speedy!) into a comfortably hard pace when after our first loop in the soccer fields, we spied Alise walking back towards us.  She'd been on some antibiotics and wasn't feeling well but after asking if she felt like she was in passing out kind of trouble I talked her into resuming and ran at her (slower) pace for a while.  Well, she's an amazing runner and her slower pace nearly killed me, lol!!!!!!!!!!  I knew I would crash and burn after that, even said so to Brenda when we passed them, but it was well worth it to get Alise back into the race. 

Click to see larger image

Looking at my splits, you can see where I lost it, taking water at the first stop combined with the faster than I'm used to/capable of sustaining speed resulted in some nasty stomach cramps and I ended up having to walk several times after to let them ease.  I'm not grumbling (other than about the worry of having to maybe make an emergency portapotty stop) but this does show that I need to start adding a day of speed work if for no other reason than to be able to survive little bursts like I did in the beginning of the race.

Oh, and even if I'd kept at the pace I was at near the beginning I still wouldn't have placed, there are some VERY speedy women in my age group this year. The top 3 masters women were 6th, 7th, and 8th place overall with 2 in my age-group and times that ranged from 1:04:11 to 1:07:28, I was 14th in the female 40-44 age group this year.  No way I can even come close to those times when I am closer to race-ready.  This year's time by the way, was 5:18 slower than my 15k pr.

Other news, Patti and I have decided to start meeting every Tuesday at 8am to run together.  I've missed her an incredible amount, didn't realize just how much until we met back up this past week.  Studying for the Comp-TIA A+ is going ok, at least it was until today when I had every intention of hitting the books after the race but instead got waylaid with a blissful nap.  My weight in the LoseAThon challenge keeps going up and down the same 3 freaking pounds.  I am seeing a slight change in body composition though so trying not to be discouraged.  Another fun little challenge that was put out is to do 10 pushups after every bathroom visit, I did so many on Friday I thought I was gonna face-plant on the last 2 sets (hydrate much?).  

Elsie "helping" me study

I seem to have made peace with the trainer, I've found that if I read a magazine for the warm-up bit, which for me is longer than what most require, then I can get through the session fairly easy and the intervals or hard steady sections seems to fly by.  Loud music helps too, I'm sure I'm not helping my already extremely poor hearing out any :D.