This is a race I hadn't planned to run. In fact, I was not even aware of its existence until the Tuesday before the race. I debated signing up for it or not, given that the previous two weekends I had done full marathons - but after a few beers Tuesday night I decided "What the heck - got nothing to lose!" When i went to register, they only had spots in the 11 miler, so by default I signed up for that.
This is more of a no-frills race than the other two I've done in the last three weeks - there were no mile markers or anything on this one - it was literally a run in the woods. Happened to see a co-worker at the race as well, that was a neat surprise.
I had told Gina I was shooting for about a 2 hour run, but really was not sure what to expect - I don't really have a good baseline these days - other than that everything has been slower than I had hoped.
As I mentioned, there were no mile markers, so I just left my watch on Autolap (which it pings every mile measured). My total watch measurement only went to 10.5, so not sure where the difference is.
This was not a chip race, so the start line was literally just that - a start line.
There was a brief run on the road, and then we went into the woods. There were 4 river crossings in this race - which was really interesting to me - the first time thru, my right shoe got wet. The second time, my left shoe got went. Third time, both got wet, and fourth time - which was about 1/10th before the end, i just powered thru it - and my shorts got wet from the splashing.
I also managed to get bitten or stung by something around mile 5 - I was mid stride, and all of a sudden there was a hot poker in my leg - I whacked at my leg, but still have no idea what it was - my leg is still warm and swollen around the bite/sting area - hoping it is not something serious.
Finally, my shoes came united about 3 times during the race - it must have been something with getting them wet - they would just unlace pretty quickly after the river crossings. I finally got them to stick the third time i stopped to re-tie them.
Here are the splits
Mile 1 - 12:22
Mile 2 - 12:06
Mile 3 - 10:57
Mile 4 - 12:54
Mile 5 - 12:53
Mile 6 - 11:14
Mile 7 - 11:46
Mile 8 - 14:39
Mile 9 - 12:50
Mile 10 - 10:20
Last split - 4:04
The Suunto shows it as being 10.5 miles. Regardless, it was a good run, and i finished in 2:05:47. Not the best race i've ever had, but a good run none-the-less.
I will say this, having used the Suunto Ambit for six months now, i'm hooked. The only thing I wish my ambit has (which the ambit 2 does have) is a mapping function. I used to run races with the cookie crumb tracker, and that would essentially help me figure out how much farther I would have to go in these types of races where I didn't have mile markers, etc...I think for Christmas I may need to look into an Ambit 2 - they're not cheap, but they are a darn good watch - making the jump from Garmin to Suunto is something I am glad I have done.
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