Miracle Miles 15K Race Recap

Saturday I ran in the Miracle Miles 15K for the second year in a row, but other than the finish line, everything was different.

 Last year I did this race as a training run for my January marathon.  I was in much better shape and so focused on training.  Very different story this year - all summer I have been running shorter distances and feel beaten up by the heat and humidity, I'm just trying to hang on until the cooler weather arrives.

What a bummer that Saturday was so hot and humid, it sure didn't help me mentally or physically.  I knew I didn't want to go out too fast and I didn't.  I was actually feeling pretty good for the first 5 miles keeping a 9:30-10:00 min pace and then things went downhill.  I was sweating up a storm, the sun was beating down on me and I didn't want to run. From this point on I walked and ran the last three miles.

Hot, sweaty and red faced

I ended up finishing with a time of 1:37:51.  It was only 2 minutes slower than last year, but it felt so different.  I didn't have a very positive attitude heading into the race and that didn't help.  I pretty much told myself I wouldn't be able to run the whole thing and I was right. But I have a feeling if I went into it thinking I could, I probably would have been right about that too.

That wasn't the only difference last year's after race festivities included a food fest with tastes from local restaurants.  Not so this year, it was a bagel from Panera and your typical race tents.

The other change this year was the race course.  I like both courses, but this one did have us going through more of downtown which is fun to run through. It was nice to see it from a different perspective.

Great tech T - one of my favorites!

Got a medal too!

I have some work to do to be ready for my half marathon in January but I have time.  I am even considering trying the walk/run method on some of my longer runs until I get my distance stamina back. I wonder if it's hard to transition out of that?

Have you used the run/walk before?  What is a good race ratio?