Cavedog Running

This morning was the last race of three straight weekends and last before the Gasparilla Marathon in three weeks.  I didn't altar my training at all this week, so I was feeling the two hill workouts and the 16 miler in between.  Luckily, the wind held off and was not a factor. Temperature was good, but pretty humid. The course was dead flat which is good and bad. Sometimes, little hills help change up which muscles are used. Course was well marked and length was spot on. The was a lot of races in the area today, so they had a pretty good turnout. Seemed mostly locals though.

Ran 18:53, placed 3rd overall and 1st in my age group. Started faster than I should have with a 5:39. Slowed to 6:07 in the second. The sides of my thigh above the knees have been bugging me during races and were burning pretty good in the third mile. Slowed way down to 6:28. Going to have to start races going out feeling like I am jogging again to get the mile splits more even.

[caption id="attachment_169" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Slow down hoser...Started too fast!!"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_170" align="aligncenter" width="375" caption="What a pretty finishing stretch."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_171" align="aligncenter" width="375" caption="Legs burning, kinda glad to get this one over with."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_172" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="Another first place medal for the collection!"][/caption]

Just capped off the day with a 10 miler to shake the legs out. Now I can feel better about taking Sunday off.