Busy Weekend

I had my first 1/2 marathon this past Saturday, which was followed by the Bone Bender mountain bike race.  The 1/2 marathon went extremely well - so well that I was quite surprised.  I focused on keeping my TSB at a reasonable level going in to the race, so being fresh seemed to help a lot.  I started the run with the 1 hour, 45 minute pace runners, but they were going seemingly slow so I decided to press on at my own pace.  I found that I was extremely comfortable running at a pace of about 7:52/mi, so I decided I was content with that and stuck with it the whole way.  My finishing time was just over 1 hour, 43 minutes.  My second of the three is this Sunday in Lawrence, so I'll probably shoot for a target of 1 hour, 40 minutes and see how it goes.  Then I'll see how it goes and decide on a target pace for the third 1/2 marathon later.  I stumbled across this picture and noticed how bundled up I am compared to others in shorts and t-shirts.  In my defense it was in the mid-30s when the race started and only in the low 40s when it ended, so pretty cool.  This winter has taught me that I would rather be warmer than cold, so I guess I'm just prepared.

The Bone Bender MTB Odyssey had 3 and 6  hour categories.  Considering that I figured I would be pretty beat after the 1/2 marathon I signed up for the 3 hour race.  I was pretty surprised from the beginning with how good I felt, and it only got better throughout the race.  The start was pretty chaotic, with all racers starting in one massive group.  I have to think there was well over 100 people, so it was crazy.  I didn't know these things started like this, so I was somewhere near the middle of the pack.  This is not a great place to be since you are pretty much stuck behind a lot of people.  I don't know how it happened, but a guy about 5 riders to my left went over his bars literally about 3 seconds into the race.  Hopefully he was OK.  For the first few miles of the race I just had to take it easy and wait as patiently as possible to pass people.  I think a starting position closer to the front may have made it possible to finish a position or two higher in my category, but I wasn't going to win.  I just don't have the technical skills needed to be really fast on a mountain bike and some of these other guys can just shred through technical terrain that I feel like I have to tiptoe through.  I guess that is why I'm doing this - to get better technically so I can be stronger in CX.  In the end I was 6th in my group out of 15 and I was quite impressed with the event.  I've heard Chris Locke puts on top notch races, and now I know that is true.

Now I'm trying to again rest enough to be fresh this weekend, but also get in a good amount of training to continue to improve on the bike.