Ah, El Scorcho... Though I believe the temperature was a little cooler than the past few years, it was still hot and humid (about 85F and 50% humidity at midnight start). Set up before the race with Corey, Ty, Rick, and Don. It was Ty's 4th El Scorcho, and Corey, Ty, and Rick's first. It was my 3rd consecutive -- running the 50K in 2008 and 2009. The plan was going to be to start slowly, and gradually speed up to finish at about an 8:00/mi pace, while running negative 5K splits -- this was going to be a confidence builder for Ty, as he hopes to BQ this fall with a 3:30 (8:00/mi). Within 10 seconds after the start, that plan was out the window! I'm sorry, Ty...really I am...I don't know why our first mile was 7:28, getting our heart rates up way too quickly. We were doomed from there! I'm not going to be completely negative...I really do enjoy this run. It's actually nice that it is in a 5K loop. You get to see so many people you would normally not see (most races you see the few people that hang around your pace for the whole thing -- at El Scorcho people are spread out so much, that you lap people and get lapped constantly. It breaks up the monotony a bit! My wheels came off at around mile 12 -- I seriously considered walking from the 13.1 mile on, but still managed to jog in there some of the time. My achilles tendon pain was constant throughout the run, making me run with a little limp to my gait. Today, as I write this, for some reason my achilles feels pretty good. I guess I didn't damage it too much.
5K 24:11 10K 25:31 15K 25:42 20K 26:58 25K 29:50 Total: 2:12:14 8:31/mi
I ended up finishing about a minute before Ty, with Rick (2:53), Corey (3:13), and Don(3:32) rounding out our group. I placed 31 out of 329 finishers.
|