I have found my racing to be stuck in a bit of a rut lately. I dread the plateau that can come with running and racing year after year, so I've been thinking of things that I can do to shake things up a bit. I love half marathons and have found that they tend to dominate my calendar so one idea I had was to run shorter races and try my hand at triathlon this spring. As luck would have it, the Dallas Running Club monthly club race on April 4th was the Tal Morrison 15K. Tal Morrison founded the Dallas Running Club back in 1967 and this race honors him each spring. I have enjoyed the handful of 15Ks that I have run in the past because the distance is roughly a loop around White Rock Lake - and therefore, one I am quite familiar with. It is far enough to feel like a "long" run but short enough that it can be taken at a tempo pace.
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| Hanging with our DRC Peeps (Pic: Mark O) |
I checked my 15K PR before heading out to the race - 1:19:30 from January 2010 - and knew that it would be quite a challenge to beat it. But I kept an open mind and decided to see what the day would bring me. We had very warm and humid mornings in the week heading into the race, but were graced with an incredible cold front the night before. With temperatures in the 50s and bright sunshine, I knew that this might be the last "good" racing day until October. There is one DRC tradition that I just LOVE and that is the playing of the National Anthem followed by the proclamation that "we are the Dallas Running Club, and today we RUN!!" How can you not be fired up by that?
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| Near the start of the race (Pic: Jesse) |
My legs felt great out of the gate and I decided to just go with it - take a gamble, a risk - what did I have to lose? I looked at my watch every mile or so, but basically just tried to keep the effort steady and think of the race in 3 mile segments. I was hoping that I could post a nice negative split, but would be happy with consistent splits. I used the first 3 mile segment to "settle in" to the pace and get used to the effort. Those miles came in at 8:45, 8:24, 8:48 (can you tell that mile 2 has a nice downhill?). This was the gamble that I'm talking about, but it felt good so I went with it.
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| Feeling good at nearly 2 miles into the race (Pic: Jesse) |
The middle segment would bring the turn around on this out-and-back course and that always gives me a big mental boost. I worked hard to stay strong and my efforts paid off: 8:27, 8:30, 8:27. I hit the turn around at right around 40 minutes and some change- quick math told me that if I could hold the pace I could make it to the finish at 1:20 and some change. Challenge accepted! I knew that the last 3 miles would be the most challenging mentally. I have been thinking about and working on pushing past that part of my brain that is telling me that I'm tired or that I need to slow down.
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| Working hard just before the turn around (Pic: Jesse) |
There was a runner in blue that passed me during my second section of the race. She got a bit ahead of me, but I spotted her again around mile 7. As soon as I approached her, she would speed up and leave me behind. We played this game all the way to mile 8-9ish when I was finally able to pass her for good. I had a few more targets ahead of me, including a guy in a red shirt and one Mr K. Coming back around the lake at mile 8 was tough because we had the wind in our faces again, but I thought again about that mental toughness and pushed through. I got past the guy in red and had that PR in sight. I gave it all that I had, but fell just a little bit short - final miles 8:31, 8:30, 8:20 and 7:42 for the last partial mile. Total time: 1:20:17, just 45 seconds short of my PR from 2010 and 17 seconds short of my course record from 2012.
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| Trying to catch my rabbit just before the finish line (Pic: Jesse) |
I feel like I met many of my goals at this race: I took some risks with pacing, I pushed through those hard mental moments, and I ran some pretty nice splits (you can't even "see" that big hill in the final set of miles). I ended up placing 4th in my age group (noted that I would have been 2nd in the one I just left behind....40 year olds don't play around!) - a total win for MK today. And for those of you wondering if I caught Mr K...not this time, but only 2 seconds separated us in the standings.
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