Disappointing First Race.....Week 4

75¾ miles for the week

M AM – 4 miles recovery run, average pace 8:48 mpm, 78°F at 4AM [Dow-]
M PM – 7 miles recovery run, average pace 8:26 mpm, 84°F at 6PM [SeaC/SSTrail/SeaC]
Tu – 9½ miles general aerobic, average pace 7:23 mpm, started out fairly hard but the shoes were sweat-soaked by mile 6 and I crashed, 81°F at 4AM [2xDow]
W AM - 7¾ miles general aerobic, average pace 7:08 mpm, 61°F at 4AM and so much nicer than yesterday [SB/Dow/2xBS]
W PM – 7 miles on the track, average pace 6:51 mpm, 76°F at 7PM sun to stars [B’Wood track]
Th – 6¾ miles recovery run, average pace 8:49 mpm, a nice cool 61°F at 4AM [Dow/2xBS]
F - 9½ miles general aerobic, average pace 7:06 mpm, 69°F from 4AM [2xDow]
Sa – 7 miles recovery run, average pace 8:33 mpm, 79°F at 9AM [SeaC/SSTrail/SeaC]
Su – 17¼ total, with a 10-mile race at 6:37 mpm, 69°F at Pearland with the dewpooint in the upper 60s starting at 7AM, [UH-Clear Lake]

Sunday's USA Space City 10-Mile race was pretty disappointing. It was warm and humid but conditions could have been much worse. I ran like it was the middle of August. My shoes went sweat-soaked at six miles and the right insole of my new shoe folded up around mile 7 or 8. The new Saucony Tangent-3s have a very slick surface under the insole. I'd forgotten that the first pair of Tangent-3s I had earlier this year had done the same thing. I used that pair for the marathon and the Spring series, all in pretty decent weather. The only time I had a problem with the insole was during a humid 5K in Freeport. I'm hoping I won't have to deal with many more sweat-soaked shoe days....hah!

Here are the mile splits:
6:15, 6:29, 6:33, 6:39, 6:45
6:41, 13:40, 6:49, 6:23
At least I hit the first mile split.

Here's the heart rate chart:


The tail at the end is a short sprint to the finish. I'm not usually one to fight to the finish in a competitive dead sprint, especially at the end of a disappointing race like this one. But I was working on trying to catch the guy (JoseT) in front of me when someone yelled "Alright, Pass those two guys" and I saw MichelleF coming around us. I've never been concerned about being "chicked", but something about the way that person yelled that raised my competitive spirit. I pulled up with Michelle and she kept on speeding up. I felt a little silly sprinting in with a woman half my age, but I started pulling slightly ahead of her. I rounded the last corner wide, letting her take the shorter path to the finish. She gave another kick, but I was able to stay slightly ahead. We finished 0.2 seconds apart. I rarely sprint in, especially after so many slow miles, but in retrospect, it really was pretty fun.
Thankfully the offical race photographs only have me trying to catch JoseT. I'm #599.

Geek Note
The timing tags at the 10-miler were interesting. I'd never used those "D" tags before this race. They're UHF (ultra high frequency about 900MHz) RFID tags. I think they have to have the "D" shape because UHF doesn't pass through water (humans) very well. The "D" ensures the antenna is away from your foot. If you look through your tag at a strong light you can see the coils of the printed antenna near the race number. The good old reliable ChampionChip is an LF (low frequency about 134KHz) RFID system. The LF signal isn't attenuated by your body as bad as a UHF signal. The new "D" tags seem to have worked OK. It looks like the HMSA 25K is also using "D" tags.