4th of July

So even though it is the 3rd of July, I'll go ahead and post. Today was the annual Bluegrass 10k and I ran it for the 8th straight year. I ran a 10k PR last year on this course and I feel like I'm in better shape than last year so I was looking forward to running fast this morning. Well, needless to say, I am feeling a little tired from my little training block. I have had 2 straight weeks of the highest amount of training I've put in all year, and this is my third week of about the same amount. I had a gruelling bike workout on Tuesday and then a nice little track workout on Wednesday. The workouts went great, but they definitley feel less than optimal. I felt like I had heavy legs for the past 2 days, and it wasn't much better this morning.

I got in a great warmup on my way to the start list and was ready to go. The gun went off and I went straight to the front (still had speed in my legs from doing some 200's on Wed). Well, that wasn't smart and I paid the price. I ended up in no man's land for almost the whole race, and I only had 1 guy pass me between miles 1 & 6. Two guys caught me at the six mile mark and I was able to hold off one of them, but the other charged away. I ended up running 34:05 (almost 40 seconds slower than last yr) but I wasn't too worried about it. It was a great workout and got me a race paced effort. The middle of that race is always my down fall. Take out the 3rd and 4th miles, and I averaged about 5:20 - 5:25 miles. But those middle two miles are brutal, and a little long (according to Garmin). I ended up finishing 8th.

Casey ran her first 10k and she was happy to break 50 minutes in her first attempt. She has a big half marathon on the 17th of July, I know she'll do awesome. And Ben broke into the top 15 for the first time at this race so he was pleased with his effort as well. We stuck to our usual plans by going to Panera after the race and pigging out on cinnamon crunch bagels. Now we are about to go for a little swim, then watch some soccer and track. I am really missing out on the Tour of France since Lexington Insight doesn't carry "Versus." I need to file a complaint. At least I can watch it on DirecTV at work during the week.

Next week is going to be a little easier, then I'm headed to Chattanooga for the Waterfront triathlon on Sunday the 11th.

Tony