At least I beat the dragon

It was a great day to run.  I was in Phoenix this weekend, escaping the New England winter for the Rock N Roll 1/2 Marathon on Sunday.  Fifty-five degrees and overcast. Seriously, I could not have asked for better conditions. 

It’s too bad my legs did not agree.

I started well, running right on pace for the first 3 miles and feeling good.  Then in the middle of mile 4, my quads started to tense up.  Like a light switch, the loose, relaxed and smooth run I had started disappeared.  I tried to run through it until mile 5 where I stopped to stretch for a minute.  I jumped back in and felt a bit better, but soon enough my quads felt like bricks again. 

At that point, I knew my race goal was pretty much gone, as was probably the chance of a PR.  So I readjusted my plan.  My goal was to hit my goal pace for one mile.  I would focus on just one mile at a time.  Between miles 6-13, I came close twice, though never quite hit it.  Surprisingly though, it didn’t stop me from trying with each next mile. 

I’m not extremely proud of my finishing time this weekend, 1:45:33, but I am proud that I kept my head in the race.  Once I lost my original goal, I tried to focus on achieving something on this less-than-ideal race day. 

Today, my legs are sore.  Like I ran hard sore.  So I know my effort was there, the execution just was not.  I’m still puzzled by the leg thing however.  In training run after training run, my legs have never tensed up quite like that.  Yet, I have had a few races where this has happened, to various degrees and at various points in the race.  I’m not sure if there is a link, nor how to prevent it in the next race.  I’ve got some work to do on that piece.