Team Spee at Race For the Cure

Picture coming soon...

Aside from some pre-race confusion that prevented us from running any warmup or drills, Team Spiridon had a great day at the Race for the Cure. The air temperature was perfect, though the solar heating made it slightly warm, and the course, despite some changes that resulted in more hills, was still pretty fast.

Eve destroyed her previous best of 31:51, set at last year's RFTC, with a 28:35, running almost a minute per mile faster than the pace she ran in her two-mile time trial.

Paul picked up a substantial PR, coming tantalizingly close to breaking below 29 minutes, with a 29:00.4.

Daniel came through in 26:15, faster than her two-mile pace, and almost a minute faster than what his time trial predicted.

We never saw Jean, because she was running with an organization, the Young Hot Female Executive Association or something, but I talked to her after the race. She ran untimed, because she wasn't able to pick up her chip, but finished somewhere in the 30-31 minute range, beating her previous best, and finally cracking the 10 minute mile barrier, also faster than her two-mile time trial pace.

Carmen and Jacala finished together, at 35:01, and 35:02, respectively. It was Carmen's first race, and a new personal record for Jacala.

Michele, who hooked most of us up with the Freescale team (and a substantial discount), finished the run, at her 19th week of pregnancy, with the little guy kicking around inside.

I have to brag a bit - my 61 year-old mom, who is sort of an honorary member of Team Spiridon, ran the race with me last year in 37:18, which I was very impressed with, it being her first race ever. She didn't do any more races until this one. She is a bit of a workout freak, and she recently dropped weight to about 105 (she's 5'2"). Today, she ran hard, though she thought she could probably have run a little faster. She also saw the sign for mile 3, thought that was the end of the race, and stopped. She walked about half the remaining distance before she figured it out and ran again. Still, she finished in 30:54. If I can get her to do some proper training, she'll be a serious competitor in her age group.

And, your coach didn't slack, much as I wanted to, finally propelling my fat arse through the 25 minute total and 8 minute per mile walls, with a 24:48, 51 seconds better than my previous best. Almost as importantly, it finally put my age-graded percentile ranking into the top half (if you search your race results by name or bib number, you'll get more data, including your age-graded ranking.)

So, there are a few things we can all take away from today. First, we can see that sometimes, things go wrong before a race, like Carmen and Jacala having to spend half an hour trying to get their timing chips, through no fault of their own. That's even more reason to be on time for races, and to maximize your preparation of the things that are in your control.

Next, I think knowing the course and having a race plan was a benefit (anyone else think so?). We knew where the first quarter mile and half mile marks were, which allowed us to immediately check our pace, rather than waiting for the first mile to be over.

We saw the importance of the two cardinal rules of racing: don't go out too much faster than your pace (a key to your success today, Paul?), and run your own race, ignoring what other people might be doing. Once again, particularly running on some of the Capitol 10K course, we saw plenty of people blow past us on the downhills, only to see them again struggling on an uphill.

Finally, I think the fact that people were outrunning their time trial pace today, as some did at the IBM 10K, shows that your hard work and patience are making you faster, stronger, and more able to focus and push yourself harder. Yes, we ran time trials in higher temperatures and humidity, and it was a first time trial for many of you, but actual improvement is clearly a strong factor.

So, good job, everyone - I was extremely proud of how everyone did out there. We are ten weeks into training, with about 14 or so more to go - DON'T SLACK. You've all put in too much time, effort, and suffering to let up now. That means you make it to workouts, you get your own runs in, and it also means you take extraordinary measures to keep your body healthy.

NO SLACKING!