I was going to write my race recap for Bow Lake Dam 15K last night but then I discovered I was the victim of some identity theft and spent the whole evening locking down credit reports and fixing bank account and credit card account usernames and passwords, ugh!
The race is for a good cause, all the money from the 5K and 15K races is donated to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. One of my buddies from my running group is the race director, so we decided to make this our spring training group race, even though I was simultaneously really training for my HM 2 weeks earlier. I did zero road running the week after my HM (but took 4 OTF classes), and then last week I took 3 OTF classes and ran outside once. So, I was a little apprehensive going into the race, hoping that my training for my HM was still somewhat around.
It was my first 15K race, so it was sure to be a PR, but a good time was not really in the cards with the weather that day. The T+D was over 150 and the course is majorly hilly. From my Strava afterwards:
I started out kind of fast the first 2 miles (12:46, 12:26), although I was really trying to go slower and I was sticking to the same kind of walking schedule as I had during my HM when it was also warm/humid, but this was worse on Saturday. Instead of 75/30 walking intervals, I kept walking through about the first 15s of the 75 run, so it was really 60/45. I was feeling ok though, and I guess there was a huge downhill there in mile 2. Miles 3-5 were kinda meh... the heat was starting to get to me, as was the second of those smaller spikey hills, although the mile 3 and 5 times were not quite as bad as the splits would indicate... I stopped to a standstill for a good 20-30s to take several waters at the water stops during mile 3 and 5, especially 5 because I knew what was coming (13:49, 14:07, 14:12).
I had pretty much resigned myself that I'd be walking most if not all of the way from just after mile 5 to just after mile 6, and when I actually got there it was definitely going to be all the way. I put my head down and just started power walking, although it was rough, my HR was still through the roof and I thought I was going to barf a few times. There was a water stop there at the top of the hill at mile 6 and I just stopped there and drank like 4 cups of water because I was so thirsty. I felt like maybe I was going to regret that because I felt super full and sloshy but I was just so thirsty I didn't care. Mile 6 between the walking up the hill and the long water stop was a nice pokey 18:13.
I left the water stop and power walked up that one last almost half a mile stretch and tried to convince the old legs that ok it was time to start run/walking again. I knew it was going to be super tough to get back into a running groove after walking for so long. Just after cresting the top, there was a man having a yard sale that had some water cups out for runners with ICE in them, the first cold water of the day... I thanked him as I started to head for the downhill, and then wondered what I was going to do with this cup that I was now running with that had 2 ice cubes fused together in it. I had the brilliant idea to put them down the front of my sports bra. THAT FELT FANTASTIC.
I think they lasted like another 2 miles before they melted completely. Mile 7 thanks to being almost half walking again and another water stop (I was really taking my time at those and very thankful there were so many although I wish there was some gatorade) was a pokey, but not quite as pokey, 15:23.
I wasn't really prepared for how steep the downhills were... I had been thinking I could pick up some time there, but it really felt unsafe to fly down the really steep downhill on tired legs. The rest of the race was mainly just trying to do intervals, stopping for water (there was one more stop in this section), and not go face first into the road on the downhills. I finished out with 14:32, 14:04, and 12:53 for the last 0.3.
It was my very first DFL! It was a small race and I knew from the start I was probably going to be last, because I was quickly in last during the first mile. The sweeper car was following me almost the entire race.
I did pass one lady somewhere between mile 3-4 and stayed ahead of her until the top of the mountain, but she apparently felt better at running down the hills than I did and she passed me again almost at mile 7 and I finished just under a minute behind her. My final time was 2:14:50. Once I got off the hills, my legs did not feel that bad, I just felt really wiped out from the weather. I only took a fuel 45 minutes into it as well, I just couldn't stand the thought of eating another one when I should have around 90 minutes. I definitely think that like my HM, if the weather had been more favorable for running, I could have done better than my performance indicated. It's too bad the race wasn't yesterday instead of Saturday... yesterday we had a gorgeous cool/dry day where T+D was like < 110.
