Sunrise; Hoover Run for Hope Race

Saturday started out amazingly beautiful. I wandered out to Moores Lane with my camera and Bible to try find a great place, within walking distance, to watch the sunrise. Unfortunately I left about 10 minutes too late and missed the changed from complete darkness to start of the sunrise, but fortunately God still showed His awesomeness and creativity in the beautiful sunrise.

Picture #1; there are many more but I had to limit my uploading here!

Here it comes!

Panoramic of the view I had once daylight had come

Then it was off to Kenrose Elementary in Brentwood for the Hoover Run for Hope. Not my best race, not my best time, but I finished 6th overall and 1st in my age group (final time: 23:30, which is about a minute slower than average for me). The thing is, today I went out thinking I’d run fast until I couldn’t any more. I never looked at my pace, I just split when I felt like I was slowing down. The first 1.25 was 6:45 pace and I ended up at about a 7:30 pace, so I obviously slowed down quite a bit. But, I felt great for the first part and figure if I can just keep building on that, I’ll continue getting faster.

Race gear

About mile 1.3

Lisa, Sarah, Jay, and Brad had gone trail running in the morning and then came out to cheer. I had run past Lisa's house and see cars but didn't expect to see them at all. Much to my surprise, there they were right outside the school's parking lot cheering! Made my day and made me run faster!

I had breakfast of oatmeal (dark chocolate cocoa, honey, almonds, and banana) between 6:30 and 7 before the 8am race, and I had a little water to drink before the race also. By about mile 1.5, I was so hungry it felt like I hadn't eaten since lunch the day before! That was about an hour later than I'd normally eat, so I never even considered that I'd be hungry, so that was a surprise. I also felt like about halfway to two-thirds in I went from aerobic to anaerobic, and my HR stats show this a little. I didn't split at the miles (although the time keepers said 6:59 and 14:59 gun time for miles 1 and 2); instead, I split where I started feeling differently.

• 23:35 total, 7:28 pace (5:37 best), 162 HR (198 max)
  
• Lap 1: 8:40, 1.25 mi, 6:56 pace, 137 HR; slowed slightly
• Lap 2: 6:37, 0.81 mi, 8:10 pace, 169 HR; slowed more
• Lap 3: 4:10, 0.56 mi, 7:28 pace, 179 HR; felt OK
• Lap 4: 2:50, 0.33 mi, 8:28 pace, 192 HR; felt anaerobic
• Lap 5: 1:24, 0.20 mi, 7:13 pace, 178 HR; finish