City Views and Race ReCap!

What a fun weekend; what a great race!

We started the weekend by stopping in Lakeville to eat lunch at Cracker Barrel  - it is the only one in the state of MN, I believe! I didn't take any super fun pictures, but I always love the table games!

We were able to check into our hotel as soon as we got there; Ava and I then headed to the race expo - or "Expotique" as they call it for this women-only race. She was a little upset that there was no play area, but liked that I allowed her to buy some charms for her shoes at one of the booths.

When we got back to the hotel, she got about an hour of swimming in before it was time to get ready for the 2.5k race - or her race as we dubbed it.

A couple of St. Paul views on our way ...

I was so impressed with her! I warned her not to go out too fast, but she did anyway! Seriously though - according to my Garmin her split for the first mile was 12:43! She was just going, and was enjoying herself! Right around the .75 mark was the second hill of the course. It was a decent size hill, though not very long. This is where she got tired. When she reached the top of the hill, there was a bit of a charge to her step. It didn't last long though, especially when we had to go past the finish line before we could loop back to it. She was just ready for her medal! Seeing dad along the side of the road helped to keep her going. So did a little friendly competition when she saw other little girls stop and go. (maybe I shouldn't have told her at the beginning one way to try not to go out too fast was to tell yourself you'd pass them later!) We did the touch and go method until the end - I was hoping she'd get a surge of energy to run across the finish and give us one of her photo finishes, but she didn't have it in her. That's okay! I am super proud of her. This was her first "adult" race, and longest run yet, I'm pretty sure. She finished in 19:11. Officially:

Location	Race Time	Time of Day	Overall Place	Division Place	Sex Place	Age Graded Place	Passed / By
Finish	19:11	20:51:47	833/1108	152/213	833/1108	464/1108	167/27
ChipStart	2:23	20:32:37	1015/1108	199/213	1015/1108	1015/1108
GunStart	00:00	20:30:14

here she comes in the pink!

 

the moon was huge!

Because we had a late lunch, we didn't eat supper before the 7:30 run. It was between 8:30 and 9:00 when we got back to the hotel (and dark, so we didn't want to walk around town too much). We ended up ordering from a place that delivered. Then we pretty much ate and went to bed!

I got up around 6:30 on Saturday morning. I got ready at some what of a leisurely pace - I didn't feel like I had to be down to the athlete village area early, since there was a 45 minute gap between the start of the half marathon and 10k. I got there about 7:30 (it was a quick walk from the hotel), used the porta-potty right away, and met up with my marathon buddy! Alena and I met at Grandma's Marathon last June, and have met up at a couple of races since then. We also keep up with each other on Facebook. I ate two Honey Stinger waffles while waiting around for the start. I had never had them before, but I also knew we hadn't packed anything for in the hotel room, so I picked them up at the expo. They did the trick, and tasted pretty good, too. With just about 10 minutes to go until the start, we made our way over to the start line. Good thing too, because according to our watches, they started the race about five minutes early. That might be why I felt like a ton of people were coming up from behind me during the first mile or two.

not sure if Chad took this while I was running or after, when I was hanging out at the finish line!

view of Mississippi River at Upper Landing Park

 

Alena and I pre-race

I eluded a little bit when I shared my goals for the race that if things went seemingly perfect, I could end up with a 1:12, or at least a 12min/mile pace. After years of practice, I finally seem to be able to control not going out too fast. I didn't know what I wanted to do as far as my run/walk intervals. Over the last week or two, I've been able to go to 5-6 minute run intervals - if I felt good, I wanted to keep going, but I was also nervous about leaving myself depleted for the second half of the race. My first interval, I walked at 7 minutes mainly for that reason. The next interval, I ended up going 10 minutes, though not entirely on purpose. I also told myself that if I felt that good, to let it happen! Most of the rest of my intervals were 10-11 minutes, and I only ended up with 5 or 6 walk breaks on the course!

While 10 minutes off my 10k PR, this race did exactly what I needed it to do! I ran my best run of the summer, by far! Still, I felt like I could have given more. I didn't end feeling exhausted, but in this case I would say better safe than sorry was okay. I felt like I made the comeback I was looking for and gave me the confidence to go out and push a little bit harder in the rest of my training for this fall!

post-race with medals and champagne flutes - that are hard to see against our clothes.

I actually ended up beating my "A Goal", finishing in 1:11:43 officially! According to my Garmin, I ran negative splits expect for the mile with the biggest of the hills in it!

Location	Race Time	Time of Day	Overall Place	Division Place	Sex Place	Age Graded Place	Passed / By
Finish	1:11:43	9:25:55	1361/2167	542/851	1361/2167	1510/2167	418/321
ChipStart	3:54	8:14:13	1514/2167	570/851	1514/2167	1514/2167
GunStart	00:00	8:10:19

Split	Hours:Minutes:Seconds Time	Miles     Distance	Minutes per Mile    Avg Pace
Summary	1:11:45.6	6.29	11:25
1	11:34.3	1.00	11:35
2	11:33.3	1.00	11:33
3	11:24.3	1.00	11:25
4	11:23.9	1.00	11:24
5	11:35.3	1.00	11:35
6	11:14.3	1.00	11:14

All in all; I'd call this race a success! After heading back to the hotel and showering, we spent the rest of the day at Como Zoo and Como Town. I'll save those pictures for another post!

So proud of her growing medal collection!

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Did you race this weekend? Did you get the results you were expecting?

On a side note, this post took FOREVER to write this morning. Mainly because blogger was being super slow, and I was having difficulty adding pictures. If not blogger, my computer. Ugh. Now to move on to the rest of my to-do list for the day.