Saturday, July 17, 2010

Bringin' the Heat

Today's 4 miler was a club points race, which meant that the fast runners were out. It was also 82 degrees at 9AM when the race started, which suggested that we would all be slower than usual.
The NYRR announcers in the staging area and at the start must have said "today is not the day for a PR" 20 times. Bah Humbug. I had done 27x200 with the 6AM group on Tuesday, and I was feeling fast.
I went out at a pace that felt reasonably conservative, and was happy to hit mile 1 at 6:16 -- 9 seconds ahead of PR pace.
Mile 2: 6:18
Mile 3: 6:31
Mile 4: 6:18

I ended up with a 22 second PR.
Official results:
25:26 (6:21/mile) - 75.1% AG.
I was 13th place in my age group, which is the best I've done in a points race. I also scored for the Flyer in the open and masters classes.

I was really pumped to PR in this tough heat. I'm hoping that when the weather cools, there will be more speed to come. According to the Runworks calculator, my race was the equivalent of a 6:09 pace in ideal temps. That seems pretty generous, but I do think I can step it up when the temps cool.
In the mean time, I've taken action to cool things down by driving to Maine. I'll be training up here for the next three weeks. Hopefully, this crazy heat will have passed by the time I get back!

1 comment:

The Laminator said...

Wow, you PR'd in that hot mess! Geez, that's pretty amazing! Congrats!