Cherry Blossom 2012

So the official results are in and posted so time for a recap.

I had not been running all week, a slight tweak in my upper calf had been bothering me so I did some elliptical and stationary bike the past week. I had been running well before and had a great 5 miler the beginning of March, ran just the race I wanted to, so I was comfortable that a week of taking it easy on the road was not going to punish me.

I woke up early Sunday and had a quick breakfast of English muffin, Canadian bacon, OJ and a banana. A very global breakfast :-). The temperature was hovering in the mid 40s so I was more worried about La being warm than me. I had already planned a throw away jacket for the start. As always I plan to metro into DC for the race - it is fast and easy to do this and the metro is close to both the start and a Starbucks for Laura. We got to DC in lots of time but the porta-John lines and the lines for bag drop meant I got to my corral with only a few minutes to spare so I was not up as close to the front as I wanted.

I did not do any real warm up as the crowd meant I would be paced a bit slow for the first mile or two so I figured a good warm up period and I would not be too frustrated like I was last year wanting to run fast from the start and no room to do it. I was in the second corral so after the elite women went I only had one group starting in front of me.

As I expected the first two miles was a bit slow but not as bad a last year when I was in the third corral. I felt good throughout - picked up the pace on the small rises, no real hills, and had lots of energy to kick when I needed to get around someone. I ran light - just a bottle with Gatorade and some ClifBloks stuffed in the pocket. I like the taste of the Dark Cherry. Turns out they are the ones with the most caffeine so no wonder it gave me such a kick.

After the first 5 I took a look at my Garmin and saw I was just a few seconds behind plan so I picked it up. I did actually run the second half faster than the first - 7.5 mph for the first 5 and 7.7 for the second. As I came to the last rise with 1/4 of a mile left I kicked it up again and crossed the line under my 80 minute plan, finishing in the top 17% - 2846/13974. I felt great - I had cut almost a full 5 minutes off my 2011 race.

After a day of thinking about it I do feel I had a bit more in me that I did not leave on the course. Maybe this is a good thing as I have another short race in a couple of weeks and then a half-marathon in May. Maybe I leave the big, leave-it-all-there race for one in August or September. But it is good to know that I feel like I have more.

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