1:45:39 chip time (heart rate monitor time). About 1:57 on the course time. AHR: 174; MHR: 185 (yeah, I burn high). 49-50 degrees out, light to no breeze, overcast.
Cool conditions. Ran into a few tri clubbers, both before the race, during, and after. We really need more cooler weather gear to wear, but that’s another story.
Forgot to lap time the miles as we went past them until mile 5 (0:52:06), and then there was no mile 7 marker. Sometime past mile 5 I felt like I had a rock in my shoe, so stopped twice (at about miles 6 and 7) to see what was up with it. Couldn’t find a thing. I suspect that somehow, no matter that the shoes have never done this, they were pinching the outside of my foot. Have a nascent blister developing, but no biggie.
Was running with two clubbers up until mile 5 when I hit that max heart rate and decided to pop back into the average range. I used to be able to run at 181/182 and that was about my threshold, but I think I’ve dropped back a bit to 179ish. Considering I’ve done no threshold training as yet this year, that’s not too surprising.
Was very glad I dumped the jacket at bag check as I heated up pretty well once we got running, and even more happy that I’d brought it afterward. The wind picked up a little while we were out, and being soaked in a cool breeze at 50 degrees out is pretty chilly.
Maintained a pretty steady 10:30 pace, which was great. I was expecting to come in closer to 2 hours for my finish for it based on my training runs, so I’m quite pleased with the chip time.
The cherry blossoms are at peak today, and they were absolutely gorgeous. Little fluffy white clouds of flowers attached to the trees. A good part of the early and late race are around the Potomac and the Tidal Basin, so we saw some great ones.
Happy to have finally run this race, which was shaping up as my nemesis after sports injuries kept me out the past two years. Was tons of fun, and great prep for the half marathon in two weeks!