Mario Lemieux 6.6K Race Recap

Coming back from injury made me both hungry and scared to race again. I didn't even sign up until the weekend before, but I had so many friends running it and thought to myself that I could at least run it as part of my 4 mile recovery run. Plus, the medals and shirts from this year were FREAKING AWESOME looking.

The morning of the race was weirdly warm for October in Pittsburgh. I don't know how some of ya'll were able to run with long sleeves during that heat! Maybe I just overheat too quickly, and I hate being hot!

I was getting dressed and listen to "suggested songs" from my current Half Marathon Playlist on Spotify. I found some really cool songs! They were my first few in queue for this race. I gotta say, a good song can really get your legs pumping! Fact: distractions can minimize the perception of pain, because as you'll find out, by the end of this race, I was hurting!

SPEAKING OF THE RACE...

I saw my good friend, who got me into blogging actually, Steff at the start line. She had already ran a few miles as part of her killer marathon training plan, and we both were kinda throwing our hands in the air as to what we expected out of the race. I really had no idea what to do with the race until I started running; I could have done it as a 'recovery run' from doing 8 miles the day before, done it at GMP (goal marathon pace), or race my heart out.

Now which do you think I did...

I didn't even have my watch set when the gun went off. Thankfully I was behind the start line for enough seconds to hit "Start" by the time I went under the banner.

Mile 1:

I started going and just went. I blared my new tunes and pumped my legs. About a half mile in, I looked down at my watch and rode at a 6:50 pace. Uhhhhhh what?? I assessed myself and thought, okay, maybe I can rock a 7:00 average pace by how I feel right now. I spoke way too soon, and at the end of mile 1, I had horrid cotton mouth and was feeling the lactic acid in my legs. Thank god for the early water station.

Time: 6:50

Mile 2:

I definitely had to make an effort to go keep pumping my legs. I knew I was slacking though, and I really wanted to stop as we made our way up 10th Street Bridge. Mile 2 took grit...

Time: 7:14

Mile 3 & 4: I HATE THIS PART OF THE RACE. Some people love it because it's flat, but its a down and back on Second Ave and through the Armstrong Tunnel. It is absolutely boring and I found myself slowing down heavily. My legs felt like lead and my mouth was still dry; I felt like I was on the highest resistance of the stationary bike.

Time: 7:26

Time: 8:07

Last 0.1: Everything Hurts and I'm Dying. The last 0.2ish is uphill, and it killlllllled my pace. Heck, the whole race killed my pace if we're being perfectly honest. At the 4 Mile marker was a time, and I saw that I was at 29:45. I wanted to be below 30 minutes all of a sudden, and I had to dig to make it to the finish. I didn't know my time right away, but I knew that I gave everything in me that I had.

Steff and Sara, two wonderful women who inspire me to be a smart runner

Official Times:

5K: 22:27 (just four seconds behind my PR)

6.6K: 30:20 - which is a PR (I can't find last year's official time)

5th Place 20-24 Female (11th place last year)

I know I positive-splitted. Do I care? eh.. kinda sorta. But so what? This race was for fun, which means, whatever happens - happens. I still did better than last year and had fun being a part of it again. Plus, since we were Stanley Cup Champions, I just had to do it!

Now that I'm more comfortable with racing again, I can't wait for EQT in a couple weeks!