race recap

So this morning I ran the Tipperary Hill Shamrock run. Why do I continue to torture myself by signing up for races with "hill" and "mountain" in the name?
haha. The race was great, very well organized, no issues parking, a little over 2000 participants, good crowd support, plenty of water, and G2 (Jeter Juice!).
The weather, not so great. Rainy although it had slowed to a drizzle and then stopped for most of the time I was running but more troublesome - extremely windy! And somehow they planned it so all the uphills would be into the wind!!

Anyway, onto the numbers.

My net time was 30:44, 7:41 pace
I don't really care about age group/place results - you know unless I win something which is almost never. haha

My Garmin splits show how lopsided the course was in terms of elevation - first mile almost entirely downhill and miles 2.5-3.5 almost entirely uphill!

Garmin said:
4.00 miles
30:28 mins
mile 1 - 6:43 (?!)
mile 2 - 7:28
mile 3 - 8:22
mile 4 - 7:55

I think my garmin mapped out 4.05 miles hence the time discrepancy which is really pretty accurate. I had to take some wide corners due to crowding so there would be a difference there. Also, I still haven't mastered the art of stopping my garmin when I cross the line. I accidentally restarted it twice, and then again on the drive home (that was my fastest split) so I didn't get my garmin pace.

Anyway, my splits look very uneven - way worse than they are. The first mile felt ridiculously easy but I did try to push it to have a time buffer. The second mile felt harder as there was some uphill so that must have been when my legs got to work. The third mile I completely fell off pace, the final hill killed me - the slight rolling hills had taken more of a toll than I thought and I was winded. My abs really felt it too, I've done a bit of hill work, actually I haven't really been training again for long but still, I was disappointed in this effort. Since the first half of the course had been relatively easy I was hoping to have more left at that point. I think running into the wind might have made a difference here as well. The final mile is a little more uphill and then around a loop to the finish. I had anticipated that I could pick it up again and finish pretty strong! The problem was, I had very little left! I think more of this mile was uphill than I realized because I did try to push it on the flatter areas but it was still tough to get under 8 min/mile pace.

So overall, I'm okay with my time. I mean, it's the first race of the year, I've only done 3 interval sessions and while I've been running conistently and more miles the past couple months - I wasn't really doing much consistently all fall/winter. So given that this was a hilly course and the weather was tough - rainy/windy I'm okay with it.

I am disappointed I couldn't hold it together better for the hill at the end. I thought I could still keep the pace down to 8:30s for the hard part of the hill and I clearly did not. I also had a hard time recovering at all after the hill and just wanted to be done at that point.

So I have quite a bit of work to do but its a start. I really want to get my 5k pace down to 7:00 min/miles. It won't be easy but I'm going to work at it.
I also think I need to start working on my core and doing some exercises there. I haven't done any weight training at all and know its lacking. I'm going to do a more detailed post on some of my planned training and goals soon!

Next up, a couple of longer races! I need to get a long run in soon, tomorrow if I feel okay otherwise I'll have to be good with my time Monday to fit it in.