Iron Pol

The 2008 Bellin Run is in the books.  It was a beautiful day, with very slight breezes and fairly moderate temperatures.  While it was a bit warm in the open areas, it was far from the extremes of heat experienced the past few years.  In fact, conditions were so good that at least one new course record was set (though I don't know which).

For me, it was a good run, though less than I had hoped.  The first several miles allowed me to know I was unlikely to break 40 minutes.  It would have taken a significant negative split, and I didn't have that in me.  I set my sites on maintaining a good enough pace to set a PR.  By mile five, I knew that was out the door, as well.

I finished with an official time of 42:49 for a pace of 6:54/mile.  My 5K split was 20:30 making it easy to see how I faded on the second half.  It also shows how big a negative split I would have needed to break 40 minutes.  Given the physical circumstances of the past weeks, I'll take a second best 10K run in lieu of a personal best.

It seems many of my co-workers were dragging the same anchor.  The top three runners from last year were the top three runners, this year.  Our fastest was about 1:45 slower, this year.  I was 1:27 slower, and our third fastest runner was 2:08 slower.  While still 1, 2, 3, our cumulative times were over five minutes slower.  It looks like next year we all need to focus on speedwork in the weeks leading up to the race.

That's three races down, and one big one left on the horizon.  I now have about five weeks to recover and get myself to the starting line in Racine.  After that 70.3 miles, I'll figure out what my body can handle for the rest of the year.

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