8 Mile RE-FRIDGEE-EIGHTER RUN - Sunday Feb 17, 2013

Coldest  ever event today and of course I overdressed!     Did the 8 Mile ( 12.7K ) RE-FRIDGEE-EIGHTER RUN  today.

 Had some reservations about going to the effort of getting out of bed a 6:am,   almost 3 hours of driving to run for an hour!    Managed to make it to the race only to find that they didn't have bib for me ,  as a matter of fact they didn't find me on the list!!!!  Well I wasn't really all that unhappy ... thought about jumping in the car and going home but I was pretty sure that I laid out the $$ for the race.  I had lots of time so I grabbed my iPhone and logged into my Gmail account and there it was my registration confirmation for this years race.   As it turned out I am down as Ronald Gordon ,   I had registered using my legal  name Ronald Gordon Irwin and they lobbed off the Irwin part!!!!!    

 OK ,  so I got to the start line.  It was -24C when I pulled in at 08:30 and had warmed up considerably by 10:00 am, around -17C .... man I was overdressed and I knew it!   Mistake #2 ,   Saucony Exodus Gortex Trail Shoes on bare pavement ...can you say overkill?     I seeded myself near the back at the start thinking chip time ,  nope gun time start ...well there goes 30 seconds!    First K lots of traffic but I really didn't care ,  posted a 5:13 time allot faster then it felt.  The crowd thinned quickly   so I picked it up completing the 2nd K in 4:49.  I like watching the avg pace tick down and it felt like a moderate effort   and was satisfied  with anything sub 5:00.   2.5K in beads of sweat started to form ,  hat came off and the zipper on the firewall jacket started to head South.   Completed the third K in 4:44 ,  felling good but getting hot.   More or less did the next 7K at a fairly even effort logging 4:47, 4:50, 4:48, 4:44, 4:44, 4:39, and 4:45 Ks.   I was trying to do the math and though that if I pushed hard for the remaining 3 or so Ks I had a shot a breaking 1 hour    So for the first time in the race I started to push  logging 2 consecutive 4:30Ks ,  not quite good enough but I thought that maybe ,  just maybe I could find yet another gear. Finished the remaining  0.725Ks at a 4:20 pace but what I needed was around 4:00.

 Crossed the Matt tripping the clock at  1:00:21 good for  43rd out of 145 participants,  4th in the 50-54 AG category out of 7 old guys and I was the 39th male out of 89 in the race.  

 All and all a good day with some decent results.  If I had have been more focused and more in tune with things before the race, ie. road shoes etc,  then I could have got it somewhere sub 59:00.    I enjoy the challenge of the shorter races and find it really helps me to remember that this is a "race" and we are "racing" and sometimes I do like to challenge the clock!