Runnin late amd runnin slow

May 17 - HCS Longfellow 2 Mile

The drive from Alexandria to Columbia should take about 55 minutes. That means if I leave the hose at 12:45 I SHOULD make it for the 2PM start fairly easily. Registration takes all of 30 seconds (sign my name and drop 50 cents in a jar). Unfortunately, today I failed to consider the impact of construction on the 14th street bridge would have on my commute. The bridge was backed up to Crystal City and crept along for 45 minutes. The GPS in the car said I would be about 15 minutes late at that point. Nonetheless, I decided to step on it and hope that the start of the race was delayed.

I made it close. By speeding a bit in uncongested areas I was able to make up some time. I pulled up to Longfellow just in time to see the last place runner leaving the parking lot with a pack of runners in front of her. I jumped out of the car, tried to get my heart monitor working , and ran over to the start line. I verified that the runners I had seen were the 2 milers and I was off.

I was obviously out of my normal race mode of being in front of a few people. I had no one behind me and my closest competitor was probably 1/4 mile or so ahead of me when I began. There was no way on Earth I was going to start slow today.

My GPS couldn't figure out where I was since I kept moving. As a result I can't tell exactly what my pace was. But my heart monitor kicked in about 3 minutes into the race. I was already at 132 beats per minute and the last place runner was in sight. I ran hard until I passed her and then took a walk break to recover. I'm surprised to see that my heart rate was only 139 at that point. I felt a lot worse than a 139!

The rest of the race saw similar burst of energy, followed by 1 minute walk breaks. I REALLY wanted to catch up with some of the other runners. I finally caught up to the next to last racer (Karen Denmark) as we took the left hand turn back towards the school. I kept the hammer down all the way to the finish line, resulting in a heart rate at the end of 156. My average for period that was timed was 139 beats per minute. I finished 26th out of 28 finishers and was recorded with a time of 25:24. I estimate my "real" time on the course was about 23:10...maybe a tad faster. The lack of accurate information is frustrating and I now wear a regular watch as a backup in case I can't get my GPS to work properly.