Race Report: Frostbite Four

I have been waiting to post this, as I was hoping there would be some photos of me from race day, but it appears like they mostly got photos of the two mile and just the top speedsters in the 4 mile. Spoiler alert: I was not in the top speedster category. :P

Melissa and I got to Beresford around 10 a.m., and while I felt like I had light years of time in 2018, I felt super duper rushed. We grabbed our bibs, and headed out for a warm up. I had hoped for 2-3 with some strides, but we only had time for two. I debated about what I should wear for most of the warm up, ultimately deciding on a tank top over a light long sleeve and that was definitely the right choice. It was probably pushing 40 at the start of the race and the glorious sun was beating down on us. I wore capris, but definitely wished I had shorts after about 7 minutes of running.



The warm up felt ok, the strides felt great. We had time to grab a quick bathroom, and it was time to get on the bus. This morning is flying by! I had hoped that Melissa and I could work together; I knew she'd be faster than me, but I was hoping to chase her a bit. The plan was to start around 8:15 pace, and hopefully drop to 8 or sub 8 for miles 2-3. We were together for maybe the first half mile, right around that 8:15 pace. She left me and looked like she was out for a Sunday stroll, not like she was running that fast. I had hoped that starting conservative would lead to a faster finish, but my legs felt pretty heavy and blah from the gun.

Mile 1 8:18

Instead of speeding up in mile 2 for a much beloved negative split, I looked down to see that I was running around an 8:33 pace. EEPS! I put my foot on the gas and started to push and was able to drop the pace down to what my first mile was, but man I was giving a lot of effort to get there.

Mile 2 8:18

About the halfway point, I knew that there wasn't going to be a massive negative split happening, and I'd be lucky not to slow down considerably based on how I was feeling. I factored my finishing time to be around 33 minutes and was so bummed, as my original goal was sub 32. Gah. Luckily during this mile I gained on a small group that was ahead of me, so I wasn't running solo anymore. This helped me focus on something other than how sucky I felt.

Mile 3 8:18

For the final mile, I put on my power Eminem song, expecting my legs to just do their thing, as they've been conditioned to do in this song. Except they didn't. And then we turned and started going into the wind for the first time this race. Uff da. The 605 staff had a sort of informal challenge of boys vs girls with gender placings, so I focused on catching up and passing two females to help slightly. :P

Mile 4 8:01 (8:17 pace, my watch read 3.97)

I finished the 4 miles (or 3.97) in 32:54 just sneaking in under 33 minutes for a pace of, you guessed it 8:18. My heart rate monitor went wonky about halfway through the race, so I don't have specific data on that, but I can tell that through 2.3 ish miles I was working my tail off, which was my ultimate goal if the pace goal wasn't there.

Melissa and I continued for 2 more miles to cool down after the race. I had a flare up in my left rib with about a mile to go which killed during the cool down, but eventually loosened up and relaxed. Uff.



After the race, I was super bummed. I really thought that I was in better shape than this race showed. As I sat with it throughout the weekend, I realized that where I am with my training this spring is different from last year. This year, I needed to mentally take a break after Dallas. I knew I had an intense cycle from February to mid May, followed by another marathon cycle starting in June. Last year, I trained for a fall 10 mile and a late January half marathon. I was a lot more focused on speed, and we had a gorgeous November-January to train.

Last year I was in almost peak form in February, which is why I shocked the hell out of myself at this race last year. seriously. I think I ran 15 seconds/mile faster than my goal. That never happens! Unfortunately, because I was in such great shape so early in the season last year, my spring races suffered; I had an injury flare up in March and none of my spring half marathons really showcased the shape that I was in. I peaked way too early.



Hopefully this race shows that I'm right where I need to be with my spring training kicking off. I'd much rather sacrifice a 4 mile PR for a half marathon PR, or top 3 race time!

And it was a super fun day. There were so many of my running buddies there. Lots of 605 Running Co. friends, SFWR friends, some of the athletes I coach. And my running besties both got PRs. So it was fun and I'm glad I did it!

Race Report: Frostbite 4

I love late race starts. I love sleeping in, even though sleeping in meant 6:30am, followed by a turn off the alarm and reset for 7:30am. Still felt great. I got out of bed, tried to figure out what to wear, and even had time to use my neti pot to flush my overloaded sinuses. Too much of a visual picture there? Sorry. THERE WERE BOOGERS EVERYWHERE! Too graphic? sorry.

I picked up Toni at 9am and we headed south. We got to Beresford around 9:30am and it was then that I realized we had 90 minutes until the race started. Ha. Oops. We hung out inside the school, catching up with friends until about 10:15 and then we headed up to do a warm up. As soon as we stepped outside, the wind had picked up and it had started to sleet/snow. WHAT. IS. THIS. Luckily within a couple of minutes, it stopped. We did a two mile shake out with a few strides thrown in. We determined it was warmer than we thought it'd be, and were thrilled we opted for capris instead of running pants.



We had time to snag a picture with the SFWR crew and our favorite speedy elite runner Bensane.



Before too long it was time to board the buses to be bussed out to the race start. They have 3 race courses for this event and pick the one that is most with the wind. There wasn't much wind, but we were bussed out to the south.



One of my running friends said she thought she'd be around 8 pace, so I thought I'd keep her in my sights. Another running friend ran exactly the pace I wanted to last year, so I'd hoped to stick with her as well. The race started, and we were off!

I got out a little too hard, probably but wanted to get ahead of the clumps of people. I felt good, but was a little startled when I glanced at my watch and it said 7:41. Ooooooh, that's too fast. I didn't consciously slow down, but I must've or my watch finally caught up to me, because I settled around an 8:22 pace. Perfect.

Once I settled in, I realized that I was feeling good and I wanted to push the pace a little bit. I went by a few of my running friends, and luckily the gal I was hoping to follow based on last year, leap frogged back in front of me. I was really pleased when mile 1 clicked off on my watch.

Mile 1 8:11

Typically I slow way down in mile 2 of a faster race because I've gone out too hard, but I kept pushing. And I was pleasantly surprised when I was feeling pretty good still. We came up on the halfway, and I did some quick math to determine that I wanted to be at or under 16:30 to shoot for that sub 33 that had become my new goal time. And then in all the math calculations, I forgot to actually look at my race time when I hit mile 2. Lolz.

Mile 2 8:10

Who is this consistent runner? Because it's surely not me.

Ok, mile 3 will hurt. It always does. During the warm up miles, Toni and I were talking about the mile. Back when I was a miler I would always go out too hard on lap one, lap two I would suffer dearly because I went out too hard, lap three I would work to make up what I lost in lap two, but the split would be basically be the same as the second because my legs were fatigued AF and then lap four I would kick it in because I was a sprinter at heart, and it's easy for my brain to think about running super hard for just a shorter period of time. I tried to embrace the hurt, knowing it was going to be hard. I was running pretty solo at this point, but thought if I could pick up the pace in this mile, I could maybe put myself in a position to out kick some of the folks in the pack of runners in front of me.

Mile 3 8:06

I started getting really hot during the final mile. The sun came out in full force shortly after the race started. For a minute I contemplated shedding the shirt because I was so warm, but I knew I couldn't finanagle my bib off in time. I wanted to drop the pace to sub 8, I was tired and hot but that's all the more reason to get it over with fast, right? The two peeks I had was at 7:48 and 7:54 pace. Uff da.





I started to get really tired with about a half mile to go. That group that I had hoped to kick and catch up to? Well they also had a kick and pulled away even further. There was a small group of two mile run/walkers that I had caught up to, so I tried to focus on them. With about .35 to go I really tried to kick to finish strong.







Mile 4 8:03 pace (my watch read 3.98, so my last split was 7:51 for an 8:03 pace, others had 3.99 or 4.0 so maybe I just killed the tangents for once in my life!)





Official time: 32:20 for 8:05 pace.
Average HR 170, Max HR 180.

Race Result

Overall87 / 245 (35.5%)

Ages 30 - 397 / 42 (16.7%)

Gender30 / 143 (21%)

My A goal for this race was 8:19 pace. 8:19. That's almost 15 seconds slower than I ran. To say that I'm ecstatic with my performance is an understatement. After a really rough half, where I felt like death, it really made me question my fitness and my training, and all of the not so fun thoughts that go through your brain on a bad day. This race day proved that I've been working my butt off this past year, and that I've made significant progress, and that there's still speed in these ol' legs. In October I ran a 5k in 8:11 pace, and I ran a mile farther, faster at this race. If that doesn't show progress, I don't know what will (again, saying that 100% to my brain that sometimes has doubts :P).

Toni ran a really strong race, and had time to snag some stellar finishing pictures of me. What a BRF!



After the race, we got in a one mile cool down, that felt hard. I looked down at my watch, and expected it to be at a quarter mile and it was at .08. I thought for sure my Garmin was wrong. Nope. Just had felt like forever. Uff. After the run, we went to the after party at the Bridges for free chili and chicken noodle soup. This race is great! I would highly recommend it to anyone who hasn't done it!

605 Series 4 Mile Race Goals

Last weekend, I was looking ahead to week 3 of our training plan and fired off a frantic text to Toni, "holy crap we're racing next weekend already!" We had signed up for the 605 Race Series a few months ago, and they've been on the calendar since then, but somehow it's already the end of July and I'm just not sure how that happened!

The race series is a 4 mile, 8 mile, and 12 mile every other Sunday leading up to the Sioux Falls half. I was hesitant about signing up, because I know that "racing" 4/8/12 leading up to the half won't benefit my training, my Toni insisted we sign up, and not race them. And duh. She's totally right. The race series supports my favorite running store, their wheelchair race adventures, it's super cheap, there's awesome prizes, and even though they say it's low/no frills, I won at least 1 nice pair of running socks last year, and to me that's MUCHOS FRILLS!

The plan for Sunday's four miles includes 8 miles with 4 at tempo-ish. This is the one race of the series I'm actually planning to all-out race. I think we'll do a 2-3 mile warm up, 4 miles race and then 1-2 mile cool down.

Based on my best 3 mile of this summer, McMillan puts me at an 8:30 pace for the 4 miles. That'll be my A goal for Sunday.

My last 5k was at a 8:39 pace, so I'd be pretty happy if I could do 4 miles at that, especially if the weather is more favorable than it was on the fourth.

Otherwise, my last, and only, 4 mile race was during this series last year, and I completed it in 9:06 pace. Our tempo paces have been around 9:05-9:15 in the 100% humidity over the past few weeks, so  4 miles at tempo would still be a great workout for the day.

Either way, I'm looking forward to running and racing with a bunch of my friends and supporting our local running store.