Thursday, June 18, 2009

The Run

Ironman 70.3 Boise has a great run course. It is flat. It runs along side a river and there are lots of trees. Had it been hot, it would have been great. It was definitely not hot. A little bit of rain, but not too bad.

I started running miles between 10:15 and 10:45 which was my goal. I think I ran mile 8 in 11:00 or close to it. I was starting to feel it. No cramping though, which was great. But I was starting to hit the wall. My times drifted a little over 11 minutes until Dave caught me near mile 10. It thought he was done and was just being a jerk. I figured he had been done and was just trying to be encouraging for us slow pokes. And really I wasn't in the mood for someone being encouraging. But as it turned out, he had a rotten swim, and had entered the run about a 3/4 of a mile behind me. Dave ran with me for a bit and then I sent him on to bug Fish. Fish was about a hundred yards in front of me.

Dave quickly caught up to Fish, who then just decided to start walking. Having Dave catch him totally demotivated. They walked until I caught up. Then I made them run. We ran at a slower pace for a mile or so until we saw the mile 12 sign. Then I guess I was feeling better because I was running about a 10:30 pace with Dave, who was still bitching that I was too slow. Fish told us to dial it down or the pounding on the pavement was going to kill him. So we did.

Near the finish line the path splits. One lane is the turn around to do the second lap and the other heads to the finish line. Dave tried to push me to the side that heads back to an additional lap. I was in no mood to be messed with so I slugged. We finished together and got our medals and a finisher's hat. Cool.

I was way glad it was done. I felt much better at the end than I did last year after Vikingman. After Vikingman, I could barely do anything other than breathe. I was very sore, but my mood was great and I could walk around without too much trouble. Getting up and down wasn't fun, but other than that it was ok.

I will probably do Boise again. Probably next year. I need to have a better race before I punt on these things.

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