Papa John's 10 miler

Completed the Papa John's 10-miler this morning with a PR 7 minutes faster than my previous record - woo hoo! Felt good the whole time. Started out with great weather (and the $50 dollar bill I found near the start didn't hurt my moral either). 3 miles in we entered the park which is nothing but another 3 miles of hills - some quite steep - and 6 miles in a calm drizzle came into play. Felt great though, because at that point I was getting a bit hot and it was a welcoming cool down. It ended by about mile 7 though, and it was smooth sailing from there. Did the regular 6:1 intervals and was able to finish strong.

I think a lot during races - that's really all you can do. The music playing in the ipod is just a pick-me-up if needed. Feeling good throughout the race, one of the things that I realized is that all of this cross-training has really helped my running. It's amazing! I was just telling Alicia on the car ride in to complete this mornings race, that I really don't run much for training - with both the endurance races and triathlons - but the biking and swimming are doing wonders for my muscles and endurance. It's really great. The workout schedule for the swims this week were 1100 for both days. I mis-read the second schedule and thought I had to swim 800m straight (supposed to do 600m), but I was actually able to do it and breathed only every 3 strokes rather than 2 like normal. I think I've begun to realize that I really can do this triathlon stuff - especially the Oly distance coming up in just over a month. Still up in the air about the half-Ironman in September. If I can talk Alicia into it, it's on! Otherwise, we're definitely in for next year. I'm just feeling so great now, and the training is going great - and I'm doing nothing but gaining muscle and endurance. We'll see what happens in the next few weeks. Will probably make a definite decision after the Knoxville Tri in May. Next week: My 10th half-marathon in St. Louis. Another PR? Hmmmmmm......