Just an Average SKIRT

Finished the Colfax marathon on Sunday - ‘just a training run’ was the theme of the day. Which by the way, made this the most no pressure, whatever, got time to kill long distance race I’ve ever done. Coach Howie gave me specifics on exactly what needed to be done per 10K and exact pace per mile that needed to be held to negative split the marathon. Of course, about 5 miles in I found myself in the dark world of math realizing and K’s are not the same as M’s. A calculating cluster f#!k in my my brain to say the least. So after sprinting a half mile around mile 12 to make up time I thought I had lost but really didn’t….I decided to forgo the conversion confusion and try to negative split the race.

For CDA - we’re setting me up to do a 5.5 hr marathon so that is what coach wanted me to do at Colfax. In fact he was so adamant about making this time and not pushing it that he said in his email to me and I quote, ‘Here’s the catch though……It’s super important that you don’t cross the line and see something like 5:15. Hold back!’. So I held back, the entire time. I kept thinking I could definitely go faster right now but continued to do as I was told. Mentally, to feel this way was key. I’ll hang onto this memory for ironman.

Holding back was tough but I decided to do as I was told and take this as an opportunity to reverse my scared turtle form and to help support others that were struggling on the course. I had a great time, I looked adorable, felt incredible - to sum it up there was no point in the 26.2 miles that was a struggle. Not mentally or physically. I felt strong, determined and confident. I was doing as I was told, I wasn’t going to stress my coach out from pushing it too hard and disobeying his expert advice. Finished with a 5:18 (negative split by 2 minutes).

I’m glad that I followed the plan because in hindsight, I don’t think it was the day to push it. This experience was positive 100% of the time, a confidence builder and a damn good workout. I was exhausted going into it, riding a century 4 days prior, running 23.5 miles the Sunday before plus a 5000 yd swim Friday. These are just a few of the workouts completed the week of Colfax. Sunday was a day to go out there and show myself how strong I’ve become. That’s exactly what I did.

Thanks to the Tiara Ditcher and the Pizza Luva - who came down to the race on their day off to cheer me on, take my photos and chauffeur me around afterwards. It made my day to see familiar faces out there, thanks guys!

Thanks to my sis who let me stay over the night before and bussed my butt to the starting line.

Thanks to SkirtSports for producing the best women’s clothing ever and to Carla at GasCap for the most comfortable, practical racing hat in the universe.

And a huge shout out to my love BJ who took his first win at the Ft. Collins tri on Sunday. His first but definitely not his last.

Thanks coach for setting me up for a great day, I can’t believe how strong you have made me.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 20th, 2008 at 8:05 am and is filed under Triathlon. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.