Sunday, March 23, 2014

Exceeds... or, the St. Malachi Race

My previous post was about far exceeding expectations. This one is about slightly exceeding them.

The St. Malachi 5-Mile race is held around St. Patrick's Day every year. I've done it a cou ple times in the past, but it had been a while. My training over this winter from hell has been awful, and now I'd learned that so was my weight. So I didn't expect much.

But the weather was great - 40 degrees with a little wind. So of course I went out too fast. My first mile was just under seven minutes, and I was still at 21 minutes flat at 3 miles. Too bad the race didn't end there. I not only had to tired miles to go, but they were mostly uphill and into the wind. It was a struggle.



The final downhill quarter-mile was nice, and it felt good to finish that part strong. My time was 36:28, good for third in my ancient age group. I really don't know what my expectation was, but I am certainly okay with this. Of course it's two full minutes slower than my 5-Mile race times of last summer. I'd better start working harder. And expecting more.

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