Bloomsday ’15 – Goal Achieved

Bloomsday 2015 is in the books.  FINALLY.  One of my goals that I set at the beginning of this year (in this post) was to finish this race in under my age (49 minutes). I ran this race last year in 46:06, but with all of the issues I had been having with my hip and knee….I thought this was a realistic goal.  On Tuesday, I ran with one of my SDP friends (Andy) and reviewed my mile splits.  (1) 6:20, (2) 6:20, (3)6:40 Cemetary Hill, (4) 6:30, (5)6:50 – Doomsday Hill, (6) 6:30, (7) 6:30, (.46) 3:10.  That would give me a 48:50 finish.  Perfect.  But I didn’t think it would be easy.  I had run the St. Paddy’s 5 miler in March with a time of 32:52.  That is averaging 6:34’s on a flat course.  The pace I set for this course had me running  a little over  6:30 mile pace and this course included 2 killer hills – one which is appropriately named “Doomsday Hill”.   I love to bank time though, so I was optimistic about letting the “Spirit of Bloomsday” take me through the first 2 miles at faster than goal pace……and it did.  Mile ONE!  6 minute pace…..Mile TWO! 6 minute pace.  My SDP boys kid me about going out too fast.  I do tend to slow in the later part of the race, but I only slow a bit….I don’t blow up.  I equate it to Steve Prefontaine’s mentality of taking on all comers and making THEM catch HIM instead of the other way around.  The SDP Boys call it “Going to the Pain Cave”.  How much time can be spent in that cave before it gets to be too much and you just want to leave it is a true test for sure. But it is easier to take, if you expect it.  Luckily, I was expecting it……so on the race went.  Mile THREE!  6 Minutes and 28 seconds.  I had banked 52 seconds on my goal time.  It only got better from there and when I finished.  The clock read 47:49 which was good enough to re-qualify me for Bloomsday 2nd Seed again next year.  I felt the pain in the knee for sure, and I could tell my conditioning was lacking due to the fact that I haven’t been able to get as much quality running in, but I couldn’t have been happier about that time.  To re-qualify for 2nd Seeding (Which means to finish in 48 minutes or less) was a big time bonus.  Hip is doing great.  Knee….will get fixed in July.  And I will be setting some new goals for ’16!