Everything Counts

12.5 miles easy.  I paced my sister McKenzie on the Strider's WRC 10-miler today.  She did awesome!  I talked her into aiming for sub-1:12 and she didn't think that was doable.  But she reluctantly agreed.  I plugged 1:12 into the course tool here on the blog and wrote down the splits she'd need, since pace varies by almost two minutes a mile on this course.

We were off and she went out FAST, probably too fast.  But she was pushing the pace, not me.  We were almost two minutes up on 1:12 pace halfway through.  Then the hill section hit and she kept questioning if she could keep going.  I kept trying to keep her motivated and told her to keep plugging away at it.  She stayed strong and although we lost some time on the hills she was still in position to hit the sub 1:12 with three miles to go.  She lost a little more time on miles 8 and 9 and got passed by a girl dropping her to 5th place.  With one mile to go she needed a 7:15 to get under 1:12.  I lied and told her she needed sub-7:00 to get her going...I know mean of me.  She got moving and closed the gap on 4th place but couldn't quite get her.  She finished 5th in 1:11:20 and was 12 minutes faster than two years ago when she ran this course.  She was way happy and the run was great for me, just over 7:00 pace.  My legs felt great and I think I'm ready to get back to training again next week.