Horseshoes and Hand Grenades - Irvin 5k Recap

'Close only counts in horsehoes and hand grenades"  or at least that's what I've always been told.  The William A Irvin 5k was not exactly what either of us had hoped it would be.  I barely ran in the week leading up to the race as we were both tired and having a few pain issues.  So that in itself made me doubt if I could make my goal at the race.  We got to the race and it was hot and seriously windy!   I knew the heat was going to take a toll but we got in a short warm up and I tried to stay calm with my music in my ears.   We both ended up bringing out headphones and ran with music.  We normally don't but figured it was worth a try.   The first mile for me was ok but my mouth was dying out pretty bad from the heat and wind.   7:12 (too fast)
Mile 2 the heat started to play a big factor and I could feel I was slowing down.   I tried to just put my vision onto the shoes of someone in front of me that I could pace. 7:47 (too slow)
Somewhere about 2.75 my legs wanted to fail.  My heart rate was in the mid 190s and the muscles were getting shaky.  I knew my chances of making my time were slipping away so I just pushed as best I could and hoped for the best.  
I rounded the corner with about and saw the clock in the distance click to 23:00 and knew I wasn't going to get there in 18 seconds.   I tried to give it a little gas but there wasn't much left and I crossed the line in
23:29.6 with a HR of 199.

I was a shaky, overheated mess.  But I guess it is a new PR so I'll take that.   Then I find out my "Age Group" is F19-34.  WTF??  Thanks to this being some national race they use the age grading stuff for the age groups and mine is the horrifically large range so I landed 16/332 (and let's point out the two olympian female runners are in their early 30's).  If it would have been the usual 25-29, I would have been 3rd.  Seriously, damn it.....   Mark's age group was normal range 40-44 and even with missing his goal time by over a minute still WON his age group  1/42 :)

We enjoyed the rest of the weekend by doing some geocaching in the area and cheered on a couple friends of ours that were running the full marathon on Saturday. 

Mark jumped on the course to run a few steps with his buddy Steve and take an action shot :)

All our friends finished and we celebrated that evening together before crashing in bed and having to make our way home on Sunday.  We stopped at a few State Parks on the way home and I'll cover and post a bunch of photos when I write up the post "Grandma's Marathon - Caching Duluth and a Few State Parks" in our A Life More Complete blog.  Hope to get that done tonight/tomorrow.  Here are a few teaser pics of some of the places we visited.  ;)

This deer was a great distraction to the not so nice encounters we had when we were here.  Wait for my other post and you can read about it.  Sigh....damn ticks....

So now what you ask? 

Well, we are going to back off a bit on run training for the next week or so to recover and try to move the focus to include more lifting and biking.  It's been a huge weight on my mind that we haven't been able to get strength training to fit into our schedule up until now.  I have been kind of depressed about that lately and it just makes me feel a lot better about myself and how I look when I've been strength training.   We got to the gym last night for some lifting before our outdoor pool swim with Masters.  It felt great!  Swim was a little "soupy" since it was super hot yesterday but we are both really enjoying the 50m pool. 

This weekend is the Tri-Loppet and the Lake Waconia Tri Relay.  We are doing the Tri-Loppet as a relay with our friend (my boss) Jeff doing the paddling, then I'll do the Trail Run and Mark will finish with the Mtn Bike.  It's going to be interesting but I'm looking forward to it.  Different is fun ;)   The Waconia Tri we are doing with Mark's brother Michael.   I will be swimming, Michael biking and Mark running.  I've never been on a relay team so doing two in one weekend is going to be fun.  Especially since I get to run one day and swim the next.  BUT Waconia is notorious for having really choppy swims so we'll see what this year brings.

Oh, and this Friday night we are meeting with our Ragnar Team for dinner/drinks and hopefully finalizing some info.  We may need to look for a replacement for one team member who has been non-existent and has not been replying to emails.   Everyone else is on board and we've been having fun getting to know each other.   Hard to believe that is less than two months from now too!