A New Personal Best

Since the late summer, early fall, I've been training.  Training for what?  Well training to run without knee pain, training to run faster, training to increase endurance, and many other outcomes.  There are many races we run in and most of them are larger so there is no way I am going to place in my division, there are just too many fast women out there, and that's ok because it's really all about improving myself.  And improving doesn't always mean speed, it can also mean endurance, injury recovery, sanity...

We start with the Wurst 5 miler.  A 5 mile race at Wurstfest in New Braunsfels Texas.  Our times show we are definately faster. 

Next we go to Vegas to run the Rock n Roll Half Marathon.  It's the first year for the Rock n Roll series to have a race in Vegas.  It was an exciting race and we did well with a 1:57.  Terry and I ran it together and for the first time we actually ran the ENTIRE race together and finished at the same time.  That made the race fun. 

Then a month later we went to Austin to defend or better our 3rd place Mixed Masters Division title in the 3M Half Marathon relay.  With Terry running 6.4 and me running the last 6.8, this year we came in second!  So exciting.  And our times show we have improved our times.  Plus I am having no knee pain!

One month after 3M, just last weekend, we head down to Fort Worth to run the Cowtown Races.  Cowtown conssists of a marathon, an ultra marathon, a half marathon, a 10K, and a 5K.  I ran the half marathon and Terry in the 10K.  These races are not easy.  They are hilly and I mean VERY hilly and in the half marathon there are 2 to 2.5 miles downhill on brick streets.  This is a very hard and uneven surface.  It's tough to run on and tough on the body.  Never the less the races are fun and exciting.  Knowing how tough this course is my goal is just to break the 1:57 pace I seem to be stuck in. Last year at Cowtown I ran a 1:57:33.  I would like to run a 1:56.  As I start out I feel myself going into a faster pace than I really intended and I try to slow it down some but my body has other ideas.  I realize now that my slower pace is really a faster pace as I've gotten stronger.  However, it is most common for people to start out way to fast and then die at the end...I did NOT want that to happen.  The race was hard but I found myself strong on the hills and was able to continue a good pace even going uphill.  The downhill on bricks was really tough, it comes about mile 8 and it's mostly downhill which really pounds your legs.  While my knee did not hurt my hips and hamstrings were crying out.  And yet I kept pushing.  There were a few times I really wanted to stop but I quickly pushed the negative talk out and kept going.  At mile 10 I realized I was way ahead of pace, the question now was whether or not I would make it at this pace or faster, or crash.  Mile 11 and 12 are uphill, not a fun place for uphill and while I continued to be strong mentally it was a challenge.  And then I saw a friend, she usually beats me in races, I could see that she was moving slower than I and so my brain clicked and my pace picked up.  The competativeness kicked in and from that point forward I pushed with everything I had.  Coming down the last stretch into the finish I got that familiar "I'm gonna throw up" feeling which always means I am giving it my all.  Luckly I held it together and got a new personal best of 1:53:23.  I've not run a half marathon at that pace ever and the closest was in 2000 with a 1:54! 

All of this to say, we may be getting older but there are things in life that age defys and on that day my age didn't matter.  I still beat a time I never thought I would beat and I am thrilled.

However, now I realize that I've moved the bar, getting another personal best will be tough.