Shamrock 4 Miler

Time: 61:03
Distance: 8.92 miles

W/u: 13:31 for 1.58 miles
Race: 20:40. 3rd place overall
C/d: 26:52 for 3.34 miles

I got up this morning to attend the Shamrock 4 Miler with Meagan, but was quick to check my RSS feed where I read everyone's running logs. Tim Budic had a post about the National Marathon that we were supposed to be running this morning and Paul Mainwaring talked about his calf recovery to the point of being able to compete this morning in Ballantyne. Paul stated that he was running simply because if you run all of the Grand Prix Series races, you get a 250 point bonus. Well, how much is a 250 point bonus? It's huge. Scoring goes as such... Runner wins a 5k in 15:00 and you run 16:00, then 15/16 = .937 x 1,000 = 937. The winner takes home 1,000 points. The longest race in the series is a 15k and say the winner goes 48:00, you run 51:00, then 48/51 = .941 x 1,000 = 941. I pretty sure I'm doing the math correctly according to the GPS website scoring table. I'll need more time to explain why this scoring system might be flawed and it will come in a later post. At first glance it looks flawed as beating someone by a minute in a 5k isn't too different from crushing them by 3 minutes in a 15k. Perhaps I'm wrong and I'll figure it out later.

Point being, if I wanted those 250 bonus points then I needed to lace up the flats. Not the best situation considering I'm racing Tobacco Road Marathon tomorrow morning at 7:00 am in Cary, NC.

I drove up to the Stonecrest Shopping Center and registered for the race. Did a light warm up and tried to convince myself to not get carried away with the race. It looked like there was a great local presence for the first race of the GPS. The gun sounded and a group kinda formed at the front. I ran relaxed early on with the course being downhill. When we turned to head back, I was firmly in 3rd place and pushed a little to go after 2nd. I didn't make up much ground and the course became tougher. I didn't want my calves to blow up or my quads to take a beating so I gradually backed off.

Pretty soon I heard footsteps behind me around 2.75 miles and knew someone was approaching. John Compton was running me down and made me refocus the final 1,000 meters. I finished well off Bert Rodriguez' lead and about 15 seconds back from second. I'll take my splits of 4:58, 5:04, 5:21, 5:08 (according to Mr. Garmin. I think race marker splits were 5:01, 10:05, mess up, 20:40).

Running 5:10 pace was fairly relaxed and I don't think I did too much damage for tomorrow. Now it's time to rest up, watch some basketball, nap and refuel for TRM.