Chasing a Leprechaun
Remember when you were a kid and you first heard the story of the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow and the Leprechauns that guarded it. This weekend I spent 84 minutes and 13.1 miles chasing a Leprechaun. He got away. That's not a life lesson, it's what really happened at the Yuengling/Anthem Shamrock Half Marathon on Sunday.
The Anthem Shamrock Half is my first race of the 2013 season. I had planned to race it with my Coach and my training partner Adam Frager. That didn't workout - both had to scratch. My pre-season plan was to race the shamrock for a PR at the Half-Marathon distance. It wasn't too much of a stretch, my Half PR is a little slow. I have only run 3 outside of a half-iron event and 1 of those was before I started seriously training. All I had to do was go under 1:23:11. I mean how hard can that be - I ran 61 minutes at the Army 10-miler in October. Should be a piece of cake.
That was before the snow in January and a 80 minute treadmill run in new shoes. Rookie mistake, I know. Three weeks off to rehab the Shin, another week for a ski vacation in New Hampshire. A month of training lost. I recovered well, but my longest run before the race was 9 miles and I had one speed session in March. Reset the expectations and set a new goal. Coach came up with a plan. Always trust the plan!!
Race strategy. Go easy in the first mile, hang out at around 6:40 pace through the halfway point, push the back side if I felt good. Great plan, really hard to execute. I have a hard time going out easy.
Standard warm-up. Twenty minute easy run with 5 x 100 strides at the end. The goal is to complete the warm-up about 10 minutes prior to the race start. Executed to perfection, then they delayed the start for 15 minutes. Fifteen minutes in 40 degrees and a brisk wind is cold. Really cold!
The Anthem Shamrock Half was a bigger race than I expected. That's not a bad thing, it just means there is a lot of competition and that makes it hard for a competitive guy like me to stick to the plan. Anyway, I set up 3 rows off the line and waited for the gun. There's the gun and then my adrenaline kicks in and I'm racing away from the starting line just like a kid again. I love the start of a race. My Garmin's pinging like an old fashioned pin ball machine - the pace setting for the first mile was 6:40 to 7:00. I averaged 6:20. I tried to pick out a group that was on my pace and settle in. The wind was brisk and I tagged in behind a couple of different groups, but didn't really find a good pace group until mile 3. I found a group, two gals and a guy holding right on 6:30 pace. It was a little faster than plan, but I felt pretty good. We stuck together for another two miles and then they picked up the pace and I let them go. I held the 6:30s through the halfway point and then began to pick up the pace right into the wind. I started working from runner-to-runner, hanging out in the wind shadow and then launching an attack to get to the next runner. I picked up one and we worked together to pick off 12 more and then we encountered the leprechaun. I'm sure you think I'm joking, but no kidding, this guy was the closest thing to a leprechaun I have ever encountered. He was 5'-4" with a shock of red hair wearing all green, including his headband and shoes, and he was cranking out 6:20 miles. My merry band of two became three and we began rolling up the competition. Along the way we encountered another runner I know, Paul Peletier and he came along through mile 9. At mile 9 we turned out of the wind and the leprechaun took off. I gave chase. He pulled away and no matter how hard I pushed I couldn't make any ground. We started out at 6:20 pace and by the time we hit the finish line I was pushing under 5:30 and the leprechaun put a quarter mile on me over 4 miles. I missed a PR by 53 seconds. I wish that leprechaun had taken off a mile earlier. It was a great race and a great time. A big time Thank You to my training partner Adam Frager, who played the dutiful Sherpa. I'll catch that leprechaun next year!