3:15.09

Well, I seem to have achieved my goal. Yesterday I set my sights high (fast?) for a pr of 3:15, and went out and got it! Of course, being at a .09 makes me wish I had gone a tad faster and gotten below my goal, but, oh well, I'm happy with the time!

Backing up, the meet was super late, so we basically sat around at Reggie for an hour before warming up. I ate a blueberry clif bar b/c I gave Brennan my White Chocolate Macadamia nut one, and it was quite yummy as my pre-race fuel. We warmed up for exactly 15 minutes outside, where it was actually quite chilly. We then came back in and had plenty of time to stretch, etc. We watched James and John and Kevin and Andrew all run the mile in very exciting races! Then we had a bit of excitement of our own when Brennan was not signed up for the 1000! Ahh! But we got it all fixed anyways! Before running, well, about 20/30 minutes before I had some GU, which I believed helped! And I gave some of that to Nina, who went on to QUALIFY IN THE MILE!!!!! I'm telling you, GU is magical!

So, the race...I was put in the barrel, which I was NOT happy about, because the barrel stresses me out. Regardless, I went thru the 100 a bit slow in 19 (I think) but promptly ran around the kids in front of me already slowing down (on the curve, I know, dumb move but it had to be done!). I ran another beautiful tangent (if I do say so myself!) and met up perfectly with Carlijn in a 37. A bit fast, but not too bad. I basically hung onto Carlijn for the next lap, well, until I realized that we were going thru the 400 in a 74, after which I dropped back a couple steps because I am afraid of going out too fast and dying. I hung back for a lap or so, and she started to slow down a bit, so I picked it up and caught up again. At one point ( I think on the 3rd or 4th lap?) she started slowing down, and I knew we had to speed up, so I passed her (again, on the curve, again, dumb move, but again, otherwise we would have slowed down even more). This seemed to have the desired effect because not only was I going faster, I motivated Carlijn to go faster (and beat me, but we'll get to that later!) So then the last lap was nice and speedy, and I ran a 37 apparently? Which is a pretty decent kick! So I was pleased with that! However, Carlijn passed me back and I did not have quite enough speed to kick past her again, and came in .5 seconds behind. Not a big deal, because I felt very good about my race! During the race, I also did not feel as tired as I usually did, leading me to believe I can run even faster next time! If I get that 41 lap a bit faster (fourth lap), I think I could get my time down even more! Even so, I'm pretty satisfied with an 8 second pr, so no complaining!

I cooled down for a total of 42 minutes, bringing the day's total to 60 minutes. They were very nice cool downs - 10 minutes inside with Betsy and Nina, and 30 outside with Carlijn and Sabina. A very exciting day all around!

Morning heart rate - 12