Saturday morning came pretty early, since I like to be up and eat a decent amount of time before running (otherwise I tend to get stomach cramps, which suck). I set up a Flat Me to make sure I had all my stuff:
The weather in Pittsburgh had taken an unexpected turn towards cool and wet the week of the race, after original forecasts had called for a race in the 70s with sun, so I went with a long-sleeved top and capris, with bonus throwaway gloves (that I ended up wearing the whole race - brr!).
After a slightly longer-than-necessary walk to PNC Park (Mike and I were both suffering from an early-onset case of Race Brain in anticipation of Sunday, I think), we stood on either side of the corral barricades, doing our best to stay out of the persistent drizzle. I was perfectly happy to run 3 miles in the rain, especially if it meant that it might pass in time for Sunday. People seemed to be assembling a little more slowly than usual, probably because of the weather, but soon enough we were lined up and ready to go.
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| Staying dry as long as possible |
I set up right alongside the 11:00 pacers. I wanted to take this race easy and save my race effort for race day. It was still sprinkling, but honestly once you got moving it was barely noticeable and kind of refreshing. There were a couple tweaks to the course but for the most part this was a familiar run, especially since I'd run this race twice before & it's on a lot of the same ground we cover on weekly runs with SCRR as well.
I was trying a new data screen on my Garmin (Race Screen) that was supposed to predict finish times based on your mile splits, but required manual lapping. I didn't find out about it early enough to try it in training, so I figured I'd try it in the 5K and see if I liked it. I kept a second screen with my normal stats on it as a backup plan if needed.
I hit my first mile pretty much dead on with the pacers, but was already feeling kind of bored (though my legs were solid!), so I decided to push it a little bit and see if that felt better. Probably a dumb idea - remember that whole 'save your race effort for race day' thing? No? - but that's life. Hit the second mile a full minute faster, and rounded out the third at about 9:30 pace - whaaaat. That's a lot faster than I'm used to going for any sustained amount of time! That was probably really dumb, so I figured why not put a cherry on top and run the last .1 at a dead sprint (6:34/mi pace)? I caught up and solidly passed the 10:30 pacers in this section, and I found out after the fact that they ended up at about a 10:00 pace anyway (a rant for another day about one pacer in particular who did the same thing to me in a previous race).
So I was feeling pretty great in the finish chute, though already kicking myself a little bit for letting the energy of the day carry me away. First half of the Steel Challenge - complete! Final time was 31:11 which is no great shakes, and actually 5 seconds slower than the same race last year, but if I'd actually raced the first mile, who knows. It did give me some confidence for Sunday that I wasn't going to have any trouble with my legs, and my HR had been solidly in the mid-150s the entire time I was actually pushing (except for that sprint at the end), which was also encouraging considering that the week before I'd struggled to stay in the 140s at 12:00+ pace in the heat.
I stopped to let the marathonfoto people take my picture a couple times but not sure anyone got me on the course other than Mike, who was waiting as we swung back by PNC Park, but because I sped up he wasn't quite expecting me yet, and thanks to my crazy last mile, I beat to the finish. We reconnected quickly enough, though, and walked back to the expo for Round 2.
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| The line for this was huge on Friday - not so bad on Saturday! |
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| Mike was wearing his green shirt on Saturday, so we had no choice but to recreate this masterpiece with places swapped. |
Unfortunately despite promises to the contrary, there were no 5K shirts to be swapped. They had a Men's Small, which I would have been happy to take and probably would have fit perfectly, and the volunteer was about to give it to me when the second person in the booth said they couldn't swap mens/womens shirts. Boo again. So maybe this shirt will fit when I lose that extra 20 pounds...? Oh well! I consoled myself with a second piece of french toast and more samples as we did a quick tour through the other booths just in case there was anything good to be found. I didn't get anything else other than that wristband for Evan, but Mike did pick up a clearance pair of the Brooks Launch 4 in the St. Patrick's Day colorway, which are hilariously green and kind of awesome.
After that it was time to head back to Mike's house, get his stuff for Sunday, and then meet up with Evan so we could pile in the car and check into our hotel later in the afternoon. I'd booked us downtown so that Sunday morning would be as simple as possible. Evan would get our stuff out of the hotel while Mike and I ran, then meet us at the post-race festivities, or at least that was the plan.
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| View from the hotel window - dreary Pittsburgh rain. |
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| Gonna run across that bridge on Sunday! |
Eventually we got checked in and settled down, and I'd picked out a potato-centric dinner that we could order on GrubHub instead of spending even more time on our feet. While we waited, I foam rolled a bit and started laying out my stuff for Sunday.
I can't say enough good things about the food that we got from The Pub Chip Shop; we tore into it so voraciously that I didn't manage to snag a picture. We ordered several of the "boxty" items from the menu, which were basically balls of shredded onion and potato, deep fried, and covered with various toppings. All incredibly delicious and lovely pre-race carbs.
After that it was time to (try to) sleep, so I figured a couple Zzzquil and a nice relaxing shower would help get me moving in that direction. It was after I'd stepped out and was toweling off that I heard the guys talking and something like "of all the things to forget..." Turns out Mike left his bib at home. In all the packing, he'd switched bags at some point and apparently that was the thing he missed. I was crashing and ready for sleep, so they both headed out to go retrieve it while I crawled into bed.
I didn't hear them come back in, so I was sleeping relatively deeply at one point, but unfortunately there were a lot of non-race people on our floor who were having what sounded like a frat party in the room next to ours, until 9:30 or 10:00, so sleep was a bit fitful, even for the night before a race. The sleeping meds helped, at least until they wore off and I gave up trying, sometime around 2am.
To be continued...
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