TOWPATH TRILOGY - 10K

Source: towpathtrilogy.com

It's here. The 3rd and final race in the Towpath Trilogy. I've talked about it before, but this is a race series that I have been wanting to do since 2013. Back in 2012 when I was training for the Columbus Marathon I completed 2 of 3 of the Towpath races. I can't remember exactly why I didn't do the first one in April. It may have been because I didn't realize there was a trilogy or because I didn't want to do any of the distances offered. Whatever the reason was, after completing 2 out of 3 I decided I really wanted to tackle the Trilogy.

I won't rehash how things have gone from 2013 to now because you all know about that (and if you don't, you can look back through my old posts). And, as you already know, I started getting really serious about running again in January of this year. Come April I was able to complete the 5 miler in a time that I did not expect. This was an instant PR because I've never done a 5 mile race before. That was a nice way to start the year.

April - 5 miler

Fast forward to June and I decided to do the 10 miler instead of the 10k because 1) I wanted the medal and 2) I figured I could do it because I would have just finished a half marathon in May so I would already be trained for the 10 miler. When it was time for that race I was kind of wishing I signed up for the 10k instead. I finished the 10 miler even though it was way slower than when I did it in 2012.

June - 10 miler

Running plans changed for this year after the half marathon in May. The original plan was to perhaps train for another FULL marathon. My running partner wanted to do her first and I was wanting to do another one. The plans changed for a few reasons. One reason was because I decided I would not be ready to do a full marathon this year and that I wanted to work on getting better at lower distances before tackling a full marathon again. Then, Leslie became sidelined with an injury so things changed for both of us.

I started running with my mom once a week and we were doing 6 miles a lot of our runs. We have been slowly increasing our miles to train for a 15k in November. Anyway, I was starting to feel pretty confident about this 10k yesterday because my running has seemed to FINALLY be getting faster. I looked at my race report from back in 2012 and started thinking perhaps I could work for a PR.

In the end I did NOT PR; but I am not upset about that at all. My finishing time in 2012 was 1:17:51 which meant a 12:33 m/m pace. My finish time yesterday was 1:18:14....literally SECONDS away from getting that PR. My average pace for yesterday was 12:37 m/m. My average pace for the 5 miler in April was 12:44 m/m, which was a shock to me at the time. To increase the distance by 1.2 miles and increase my speed is great!

October - 10k....Trilogy COMPLETE!

What is also SO interesting to me is that back in 2012 I did a few things differently than I did yesterday that would lead me to believe I should have been lots slower yesterday than I was. In 2012 I blogged about how I ran the first 14 minutes without stopping. After that, I continued on with my 4/1 intervals and only walked extra when I went through the water stops. Yesterday I was doing 3/1 intervals which I kept the entire time and only walked extra through the water stops. I did NOT start by running 14 minutes without stopping. So less time running altogether and I still was within seconds of my previous time. I'm pretty happy with that. Also, I blogged about how in 2012 it was a pretty cold day. I feel I run better in the cooler weather (I think that's how I did so well in April). Yesterday was NOT cool. It wasn't terrible, but in the upper 60's and quite humid so that goes in to my feeling really good about my finish time as well.

That was my 4th race on the year and I am so excited still to feel like "I'm back". I feel like I have finally gotten back to where I was in 2012. I can't believe it took 5 whole years, but right now my weight is just about the same as it was in October 2012 and my running ability seems to be right on par with where it was in 2012. So now it is time to focus on improving even more.

I have at least one more race on the schedule for this year. We'll see if I add any more between now and December 31st.