NY Mini Marathon --June 7, 2008

quick report of this 10K road race (check out photos on Frank's blog --Frank was the reporter for the morning and will post a race report from my friend Susan Branche. Anyway, I drove in to the East side at 7:30 and miraculously found a parking spot on 72nd and York...so walked over to th park, where I found the Taconic ladies -Lee, Barb Cathy, and Debbie -bummer that I turn 50 next week so could not help them out on the ladies' 50s team. The next team race is July 19 and I will be in VT. In any case, bumped into Bea going to the start -we met her and her fiancee at the Boy scout 5K -they are fellow ultrarunners and are going to Comrades ultra next weekend. It was hot already -70 degrees -and very humid. I had forgotton my inhaler in the car. I almost didn't run this 10K as it is really tough to re-focus your mental energy on running as fast as possible after focusing on running as slow and long as possible!! This spring I have combined ultras with tempo runs and am getting tired of trying to be master of all trades!!! It just doesn't work -This fall my goal is to get my 10K times back down to the 6:50 pr mile range, but for now don't want to get injured. So didn't really care how I did in the mini. The start was fun as Frank came with me and brought my camera and we too some pics at the start --he took photos f the elite start after the race began. After they introduced the elite runners, and we sang the national anthem we were off --the first mile is uphill on th west side. I felt tired but OK and passed thru the first mile in 6:53 -but knew this was way too fast for my fatigue level --then the next miles were sub-7s --also rolling uphill -by then my lungs tightened to the point where I just couldn't breathe and to my embarrassment (Susan and marie went by me)I had to walk ---then struggled in --the last mile I felt better and finished in 44:16 -disappointed as wanted 43 -something, but it was over and I scored first for our team -I got a medal, bagels, and flower and watched some of the thousands of women finish on this miserably humid morning -great job everyone!