Massacre, aka Run 4, Relay (4 x 1.6 miles)

I signed up for the race with some awesome moms from my son’s school; the goal was just do something spontaneous and empowering. We really weren’t even totally clear on what we were signing up for. So, once I realized that it was going to be about 3.5 hours of 1.6 mile loops with about 30 minutes between each loop, I decided to just treat the running part of the race as my speed work for the week; the downtime was my social splurge.

Since the running part was still over 6 miles, though, I knew that I shouldn’t try to hit each lap at say, mile-repeat pace, but I wanted to push myself a little. So, I aimed for the 7:45/mile pace I had in my last 5k race. I wore my GPS so as to check this pace, and I’m really glad I did because one, it was really easy to almost break down on the two rather giant hills at the beginning of each lap, and two, my teammates and I were all about the love when it came to passing the baton—not about efficiency. We hugged on each lap and exchanged encouraging words, and a couple of times we didn’t notice our runner coming in so there was a little delay on the transitions.

According to my watch, I was right at 7:45/mile for laps one and two. Lap three felt a little slower, but I forgot to stop my watch until even after our long transition, so best guess, it was closer to 8/mile. And I also forgot to stop my watch on the last loop, but the official results say I did 7:58/mile, which I think is pretty accurate. My team, the Fast Friends, ended up 11th out the women’s teams (just 20 seconds shy of 10th!).

So, the takeaway for me is that I need to do more mile repeats, and that I need to do more miles when I do. I have a 5k in 2 weeks, and I was really hoping to beat my recent PR of 24:21, but I’m a little worried about that based on this performance. I also kept forgetting to warm up between laps since I was too focused on making sure I was properly hydrated and fed (it's an obsession of mine). I do think, though, that I need pacing on a 5k, and there was hardly anyone ever with me during this relay. On the bright side, I do feel pretty good that I was able to keep a sub-8/mile average pace for the majority of my loops, especially given the aforementioned two giant hills, and—most importantly—I had a really, really good time; I got to hang out with some fun and inspiring women and cheer on the BCTC Mad Women as they kicked some butt. Bonus: I learned that I will not, in fact, die if I run after having a latte (a double even)!