12 October 2008

Worldwide Festival of Races

The Worldwide Festival of Races is the brainchild of SteveRunner, author of the Phedippidations. It's a virtual race, think globally, run locally. The race is run around this past weekend, as part of another organized race or on a course of your own design. The idea is just to run together as one global community. There were 5K, 10K, and Half Marathon options. The people behind the race describe it better than I, so click on the link above if you want more info.

On the Weight Watchers Guys on a Diet message board we organized a team of 25 runners. Some of us were experienced runners, many were running their first ever races at the distances they signed up for. I am quite proud of Team GoaD Racing as many of them completed a feat they did not think possible when I brought this concept to their attention last spring. Way to go, guys!

My "race" was really a training run for the Heart Center of the Rockies Half Marathon I am running on 2 November this year. I ran a 2:10:54, just about 2 minutes slower than my half marathon PR. I was happy with this time for 2 reasons, first I ran at a training intensity rather than a race intensity. And second I had tightness in my left Achilles at about mile 10. Against my runner instincts ;-) I slowed down for the last 2 miles by about 90 seconds a mile to give the Achilles a break. Through 11 miles I held a consistent 9:45 pace which would have been a PR for me, and is 15-30 seconds off my anticipated pace for the upcoming race.

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