Seabiscuit and Me

An easy 3 miles on Tue, 1.2 miles on Wed, and a long run (*) of 9.6 miles on Thu that felt like a breeze completed my week of training before a Saturday race: the Low Tide Run, a 4-mile run in Long Beach. The course? “A beautiful beach Low Tide out and back run on hard packed sand near the water”.

The day started with pouring rain and in the low 50's. My hubby asked me if I really wanted to do that... I told him: "well, the only problem is that with the rain the sand is now going to be wet…" He didn't think my joke was funny. For a Seattleite that is used to run in the rain, who cares...?

The rain stopped @ 7:45. The race, scheduled at 8 am, was delayed by 15 min because the logistics giving the numbers was a mess due to the rain. The sun showed up and the temperature stayed in mid 50's so IT WAS A PERFECT DAY...

My bib? 128. Guess what? It's my daughter's B-day 12/8, but it was not mere coincidence. They were going to give me 127, and I asked "can I have next?"

The course was not bad at all. The sand was really hard packed and it was easy to avoid the water, however there were a couple of spots where the inevitable happened, and my shoes got soaked.

About mile 2.5, two ladies (mom and daughter, I believed) passed me, and then they started to distance from me… One mile before the finish line they were really far. Competing against myself, I decided to play a race game, “I’ll catch up with them”. So, all the silly thoughts that you can imagine went through me…

• “They are in my age bracket and are in 1^st and 2^nd place…If I pass them, I win”

• “I am Seabiscuit, I just need to get a little bit closer to beat them…”

I sped up and started to shorten the distance, they seem far though. I kept speeding up, and got closer and closer… one tenth of a mile before the finish line I passed them. I felt like Seabiscuit running his last Santa Anita Handicap…

My official time was 40:48 for a 10:12 pace, and third in my category.

Placement: Division: 3/10 - Overall Female: 50/131 - Overall: 114/221

Not bad at all…It's the first time a run a 4-mile race, so a new PR in my pocket.

Like the race was 2 miles from our home, I ran an easy 2-miler going back for a total week of 19.7 miles.

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(*) I started to slack with the long runs as the longest run this year before this week’s was 8.3 miles and five weeks ago…

In addition, in two of the last three weeks I did only one run a week of 5 miles, so I thought there was no chance on doing the SeaFair Half. I changed my mind after this Thursday 9.6 miles where I felt so "fresh" when finished. Actually I could’ve kept going but I needed to get back home... I remember last year feeling destroyed after long runs. This week it was a breeze...So, I'll definitely do the half on June 28th.