February 26, 2011

SLC Track Club 15K


This morning we ran a 15K road race, part of the SLC Track Club's winter series. The course was a flat out and back near the Great Salt Lake. It was snowing pretty hard when we woke up, which made us worried the course might be slippery, but the roads were clear by the start and we had excellent (a bit chilly) weather for the run.

Neither of us have been doing much (any) speed training, so we didn't come into this one with super-high expectations, but we both ended up racing really well and were pleased with our performances...

For the second time this month, Andrea took home a first-place finish! She ran 58:25, which was a big PR! Her increased mileage is really paying off.

I finished in 3rd place (edged out at the line in a sprint for 2nd), but also ran a 15K personal best, coming in at 50:29. I was really happy with that time, considering I didn't taper a bit for this one (104 miles in the 5 days before the race, including a 33 mile day earlier this week). My strategy was to run negative splits, and I did just that... mile splits were: 5:35.0, 5:34.3, 5:34.8, 5:35.2, 5:26.3, 5:21.4, 5:22.1, 5:17.0, 5:11.1, 1:31.5 (last 0.3mi).

We are probably both in the best shape of our lives right now, from an aerobic perspective. After Antelope Island (4 weeks away), we're going to focus on running some more shorter races and hopefully crushing some more PRs!

Oh, and not only did Andrea run a great race, but she also agreed to head up to the mountains after the race to do a little backcountry skiing with me (a quick 2500 ft tour to stretch the legs out). She gets MVP of the day for that! :-)


This is where the race started: The Saltair Palace (which has a very interesting history... check out its Wikipedia page)


Here's what it looks like in nicer weather

Andrea and I before the start


Only in Utah... a few hours later, this is what we were doing!


She had a great all-around day!


Yeah, we've gotten a bit of snow over the past 10 days!

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