So the last race I ran (not counting Hood to Coast) was in March 2011 and I won it.  It was a 21k and it was the first race I’d won since winning a 1500m B section race in college.  Two days later, I sprained my joint capsule in my foot and it was bye-bye to running for several months.

Saturday (4-7) was my first solo race since the injury.  I’m not certain of my conditioning right now so I tried to find a small run to test things out.  Plus my workout plan called for a 4 mile time trial (whatever that means).

I found a race in Maple Valley Washington called 4k-7k on 4-7.  Why not?  It was on a trail (not ideal for time trials) but according to the two pictures on the website the trail was pretty flat.

The start and finish.

For some reason I thought Maple Valley was a lot closer to where I lived than it was (I also thought it was in an entirely different direction… oops).

It was a sunny morning and the 9:30 start time meant I could sleep in a bit.  The trail was easy to find and everyone was super friendly.  I picked up my number and set out for a warm-up.

The trail seemed up hill to flat so the second half of the out and back should have been nice… yes it should have been.

I had no race plan.  I was just going to see what happened.  I knew I wanted to be conservative.  So the started yelled start and 60 or so of us took off.

Slightly up hill.

The first mile I was with people.  I ran a 6:37 and was feeling pretty good and I couldn’t tell there was an uphill.

I ran with a guy for the first mile but he slowed down.  There was a another guy not too far ahead so I tried to catch-up.

Still some up hill.

This bridge was just after the mile marker and just before the turn around for the 4k.

I kept running.

The second mile felt pretty good.  I caught the guy ahead of me and passed him.  I ran 6:30 and was still feeling pretty relaxed.

Before the turn around.

The trail got shady and flattened out a bit.  We reached the turn around and headed back.  And that’s when things fell apart.

Okay I’m being dramatic, things didn’t fall apart that badly.  I’d felt awesome for the first 2 and a quarter but right when I turned around that feeling went away.

My legs were tired, I was breathing hard and I was all by myself.  The floating feeling I had during the first part of the run floated away.

I struggled through mile 3 in a 6:42.  I was happy to start mile 4 because it was supposed to be downhill and it most likely was, but my legs and lungs couldn’t tell.

At one point my watch had me at 7 minute mile pace so I just stopped looking at it.  Mile 4 was a 6:48.  My last 400m was in 6:12 pace but it was a much steeper downhill.

I crossed the line as the first woman and 5th person overall.  My watch had me in 26:40 averaging 6:38s.  My official results had me averaging 6:40s.

I was happy with the win but a bit disappointed in the time.  I’d run a 4.5 mile tempo run in 6:38s a few weeks earlier.

Happy

At the end of the day I’m still a happy camper.  I really liked this course and the people who put it on were fantastic.  I plan on running it again next year.

run pretty run fast