Race Take Away: Too fast, too hot

Last Saturday Rob and I ran a 4 Mile race in the small town Chenoa, IL. I work with the race director so it was nice to get out to support her (and her husband’s) event and check out a race we hadn’t done before.

Rob and I went out for a 2.5 Mile warm up and found out quickly that this was going to be a super hot race. It was humid and the temps were 85-88 degrees already for this 10am race.

We checked out the course and my legs were feeling good. Before we knew it we were off. I knew I had went out too fast because I wasn’t far behind the lead pack of guys, still I was struggling to slow down. I tried to back off the pace, but got to mile 1 in 6:39. Not a good call in the heat and without doing speed work. I would not be in any position to keep that up. I get to mile 2 in 14 and am still lead female, but fading badly. The baking hot sun is melting me and I know that I will get passed soon. Before mile 3 another female we race with often passes me as we talk about the heat. Normally I wouldn’t even get water on a 4 mile race, but by the time we got to the second water stop I couldn’t help but get water. The lead female even fully stopped at the water stop, but I couldn’t close the gap. All I could do was just get there as fast as my melted legs would take me resulting in 2nd female, 1st age group (30-39). Rob also had a melty race, but got 3rd overall, 1st in his age group (30-39).

Afterward your runner bib got you either 2 draft beers or a pork chop sandwich. So Rob and I used our bibs to split the sandwich and each have a beer. It was nice to hang out with the other runners and swap race stories.

We will definitely look to run in this race again!

Stats:

30:07 (on my watch)

7:32 Pace

F: 2/?

F 30-39: 1/?

Me with the pig mascot. The pig did not run the race, but still it had to be so hot in the costume just walking around.