Friday, July 6, 2012

Freedom 4 Miler and Group Ride

The 4th of July was rather uneventful for me. The g/f, who shall now be referred to as "The Nurse," had to work so I had the day to myself with the pup. Since there was nothing better to do, as I still don't know many people here and Wednesdays are running days, a 4 mile race sounded like a brilliant idea...even if it was 90 degrees at 7am.

The race was fairly uneventful. I headed downtown a little after 6, did my usual warm-up routine and headed to the start line. I considered wearing my flag bathing suit but, it's too big and just running around the house in it was a pain. That left me wearing my Stars and Stripes Aviators. In the corral there was a guy wearing flag tights, a flag shirt and a flag as a cape. The girl running with him was dressed up as the statue of liberty. I wish I had my camera but I never run with one. I stayed near them most of the race and people were amazed by their costumes. There was a costume contest and I'm assuming they won since no one else was dressed up. I can't blame anyone for not dressing up due to the heat.

After the start the race was, like I said, uneventful. I decided to run an easy tempo pace, faster than Oly race pace. Actually it was faster than my last sprint pace but that doesn't really count. I was slightly above 9s on the way out and slowed down a decent bit in the 3rd mile as there was a decent incline. I've come to the conclusion that people in St. Louis do not run hills or they just go out too fast in short races...or they didn't pace properly for the heat. Nevertheless, I slowed on the incline but everyone else slowed more than I did and I started passing people. I ended up finishing in 36:50. I can't say I'm unhappy with my time as I wasn't trying to run a fast as possible. I don't think I've run a 4 miler but my last 8k (4.96 miles) was 45 minutes +/- a few seconds.

I planned on heading out to the Wednesday TTs which was moved to 10am due to the holiday but, I didn't get home soon enough and didn't feel like rushing to make it there on time. So, I watched Mark Cavendish crash and hung out with Loki the rest of the day, then cooked dinner for the nurse.

Yesterday, the Thursday group ride was canceled, via Facebook, due to the heat. I'm not quite sure why as it was hotter last Thursday than yesterday. Oh well, I still planned on riding because if I didn't, I would be violating my policy of "it's never too hot to train." I headed to the normal meeting place and did about 20 miles. I found out later that some people didn't get the message and still showed up. I guess I shouldn't have screwed around and got there at the normal time.

There won't be any racing this weekend but, next weekend could possibly hurt. I have the Tour de Donut in Staunton, IL on Saturday. Oddly enough, this race is put on by the Boeing Employees Bike Club...there are a lot of defense contractors in St. Louis. Probably because of the Air Force Base just outside the city. The Tour de Donut is a 35 mile spoof of the TdF. Basically, you ride and eat donuts at two stops. For each donut one eats, 5 minutes is subtracted from one's time. Last year someone ate 40. Should be interesting. Then on Sunday is the New Town Triathlon. It's put on by Ultramax and sticking with their tradition of races with odd distances, it's a 0.62 mile swim (1k...I guess they don't like the metric system), 20 mile bike and 4 mile run. Last year I happened to be in St. Louis the weekend of the race and raced it. The run was brutal, 90+ degrees with almost no shade. Hopefully more of the neighborhood is out with sprinklers this year.


3 comments:

  1. Nice race!

    I'm not doing tour de donut this year, but it's a great event. If you are going for time, find a tri club at the front and make some friends. If you start even a third of the way back, you will be dodging slow people for the irst mile.

    If you ever want to come across the river and ride the mcttrails.org trails or in the fail, the GORC SIUE MTB trails, let me know.

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  2. Thanks for the advice. This year they said they're having a competitive group start and then a casual group start or something like that so I guess that should help. A few people from my tri club are going to do it so I'll probably ride with them...as long as my girlfriend's friends follow through with riding.

    I'd love to ride some MTB trails but, I don't have a MTB yet. I'm planning on buying one sometime soon. I'm actually considering renting one next week just to see how well I'd fair at the Xterra Illnois Wilds. If it goes well I'll probably sign up.

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  3. Here in Hawaii it is warm all year round with humidity, but we don't have the extremes like many of you folks in the mainland US. So when I complain about the heat I remember that it really is not that bad in comparison. In the winter it is a blessing for us because its basically the same temp that it is in the summer so we can run all year round.

    BTW, I would love to do a donut race!

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