RUN AROUND WOMAN RACE REPORT

The Run Around Woman Lake 30k was a great tune-up for Grandma’s marathon. My goal was to run at my goal marathon pace (6:40). Temps were decent, 55 at the start, 60 at the finish and overcast. It was fairly windy, probably 15-20 mph. Luckily the trees helped block some of the wind. The course was similar to Grandma's with rolling hills throughout.

I tried to mimic Grandma’s as much as possible. Except for the McDonald’s I had for lunch on Friday, I think I did a pretty good job. I took Friday off from work and running and rode up with Eric and Jim. It’s about a 4 hour drive, so a little longer than it takes to get to Duluth. That night we ate at the spaghetti dinner and were lucky enough to have Lloyd “Forever” Young join us. I don’t know about other states, but Minnesota does a great job tracking age and age-group records for various certified distances. Well, Lloyd is 81 and every time he laces them up, he sets a record. It was really neat sitting there listening to his stories.

Saturday morning I woke up about 3 hours before the start and ate the things (bagel, jelly, banana and 32 oz of Gatorade with 2 scoops of CarboPro added) I’m going to have before Grandma’s. I also had a gel about 15 minutes before that start. I have to see how many carbs and calories are recommended before a marathon, but I think I did okay with 225 grams of carbs and 925 calories.

This was a really small race, maybe 50 people. I ended up finishing 5th overall in 2:04:24, which is 6:41 pace. My halves were 1:02:26 and 1:01:58. 3-mile splits were 20:14, 20:19, 19:43, 19:40, 19:51 and 20:08.

So, I was within 1 second of my goal pace. The effort was a little harder than I had planned and at first I was a little bummed about that. But after thinking about racing 10K last weekend, a hard hill workout on Tuesday, the windy conditions, lack of people to run with and lack of taper, I'm feeling more confident about sub-2:55.

Eric went out hard and held on for 4th in 2:03:21, which was just over 3 minutes faster than last year. He’s running really well this year. Jim was ahead of me the first 3 miles. He slowed some, but held on to finish under 2:13. All 3 of us won our age groups and door prizes, so it was a great weekend.

I’ll link to the results once they’re posted. And more details to come when I get some more time.