Picnic Island Adventure Race #3 Recap

I came.  I ran.  I conquered.

The Picnic Island Adventure Series that is. 

This past Friday I ran the last race in the 3-race series.  Boy am I glad THAT is over!

The 1st run was pretty good.  The 2nd run was great.  The 3rd one?  Not so much.

Straight out of gate I though it was going to be smooth sailing.  Then I hit the proverbial wall at.mile.one.  Who does that?

It went downhill from there. 

Here’s what Garmie had to say:

• Mile 1 – 11:44 (not bad for running on the beach)
• Mile 2 – 14:04 (the usual bottle neck AND took LOTS of walk breaks)
• Mile 3 – 13:38 (more walk breaks)
• Mile 3 to 3.79 – 11:13 @ 14.45 pace (I clearly gave up by now)
• Total Time:  50:40

My Garmie time is only one second slower than last month, and the course was 1/10th of a mile longer.  So I should be happy, right? 

Wrong.  I just felt awful during the run.  It wasn’t fun.  And running’s supposed to be fun, isn’t it?!?! 

I chalk this “bad” race up to a couple things:

1. It was my first run since Peachtree the week before
2. It was a day and a half after I got back from vacation
3. I was bored with the course
4. I wasn’t properly fueled (we didn’t go grocery shopping after vacation & cupboards were bare bones.  My own fault, I know.)

 

If I was not at a race, I would have called it quits.  But I paid good money for this race & I was going to finish dammit.

So in true Eggplant fashion I miserably plodded along. 

(Please Note:  Diggity was running with me – our first race together since the Marathon.  Bless his heart, instead of trying to get me out of my funk…which always backfires on him…he gracefully picked up his pace & said “I’ll see you at the finish line”.  Well done my dear, well done.)

All in all, I’m glad I tried the whole series this year.  I just won’t do all of them next year.  Here’s why:

• I got bored with the course (weird how I can run the same “training” course day after day…but hate it for races)
• Friday evening races are hard to get to. 
• The course was a different length each time.
• My time for the last run didn’t even get recorded (Gggrrrrr!)
• I’m still finding sand in unexpected places! 

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Training for the Siesta Key Triathlon starts MONDAY!  Hopefully I’ll have my plan finalized by then – it’s almost finished.

Stay tuned!