the scary hills

After going through the race list in the Grand Prix series, well I had decided not to do the series but then realized that I was already registered for 5 of the races, so to finish it out I had two choices.  The Free to Breathe 5k or the Run in the New Year which started on New Years eve at midnight.  I went with the Free to Breathe even though it meant signing up for the race on Thursday night and running it on Saturday morning.  Nothing like a last minute race huh?

Well I am also a huge supporter of lung cancer research after losing my Grandfather to lung cancer 14 years ago this month.  The Free to Breathe was in a tough part of town to run in, the North Hills area.  It's called North Hills because it's on the north side of Raleigh, and there are a crap ton of hills.  This race lived up to its expectations.

There were a bunch of lung cancer survivors there, and I really got very emotional talking to some of them.  Most of the survivors walked the one mile race.  One of them wanted his grandson to pace off of me, but the kid was like 9 years old and couldn't hang.  Actually I thought I recognized the kid from the magnificent mile where he made me look slow and I did encourage him to keep my pace this time, but whatevs.

We got into the starting corral and took off with a downhill followed by a steep uphill.  The uphills were shortish but really steep.  Then it would level off typically, then a longer downhill section.  I cruised through the first mile like this.  The whole thing was residential streets so it was pretty cool. 

At the halfway point the garmin said 1.55 miles and I'd been running for exactly 10:39, so I felt like I could actually beat my 21:58 PR if I didn't completely fall out on the last half of the course.  The second half ended up being more of the same, short steep uphills followed by long not steep downhills.  Seems like a perfect-ish storm. 

Unfortunately, I did blow up a bit in the second half.  Not real bad, but I got a nice side stitch and eventually those short steep uphills just wore me down.  The last uphill was brutal, I turned the corner and could see the finish line.  A quck glance at the garmin showed I was at exactly 3.0 miles at 21:58 so I knew the PR was blown but with the finish line in sight?  that's pretty close.

Finish 22:33, a 7:17 pace
42/376 overall
5/18 age group

Sunday held a nice church service and a 20 mile run.  Came in at around a 7:58 pace too.  boo ya.  ultra training is good.

That Notre Dame game was outstanding.  The Alabama game was better.  it was a good weekend in flynntown.