Changing Course.....

Saturday's workout was a long, tough workout with a simple plan. 65-70 miles on bike, including 90 minutes at Zone 3 race simulation and 60-90 minutes of upper Zone 2 riding after that. Finally, the  workout would conclude with a 6 mile run, the first 3 miles in low Zone 3 before running the last 3 miles at a Zone 2 pace. As tough as this  workout sounds, I'd been looking forward to it. I've been feeling as strong as I ever have recently--and that really means something with my 47th birthday looming several weeks out, since I really mean I am feeling as strong as ever! This workout was going to be the cherry on top of this race cycle, one in which I was confident I would post a sub-5:30 half iron time in two more weeks. That race would be the crowning achievement on a race season whose success has taken my own breath away.

For the first two hours and twenty-seven minutes, I covered around 48-ish miles. I was either on-plan or exceeding my race plan in every way--and this was before my race taper. Then, in the span of an instant I can't remember, it all unraveled.  One moment I was passing a neighborhood park and preparing for a turn, the next thing I remember is being talked to from above and being strapped to a backboard for ambulance transport.......

The rest of that day was a whirlwind, and I can't recall every detail. Here is the very short version..... I had 5 broken ribs, a broken clavicle (4 breaks) that is now held together with a rod, and multiple scapula breaks. I also had a bruised lung and was originally being watched as a possible punctured lung. I was also suffering from a lot of road rash--bad abrasions from skin rubbing against the ground during the crash. This was worst on the shoulder, but also affected the side of my chest, thigh, knee, foot and hand. All of my injuries are on the right side of my body.  After the emergency room was done with me, I spent the next 4 days in the Intermediate Care Unit, which is a step down from the Intensive Care Unit. The biggest medical worry was the lung. Fortunately, it was not punctured and the bruise began to heal without blossoming into something worse. By Thursday I was able to be sent home so I could get going with my recovery.

The video below was taken right after being admitted so I could document my wounds.

At this point I am only going to consider my health recovery as my goal and it will dictate its own timeline. I have a long road ahead but have a good base of health as a solid foundation and starting point. While I was in the hospital, I heard a lot of "you"re so young", "you're so healthy", "anyone else would have taken a couple weeks to recover like you have in a few days" and similar comments. It makes me feel like I'm already winning and can make it back. Ironman Texas is 7 months away, but it is still a possible goal for me to do it next year.

As to the equipment damage, the bike took less apparent damage than I. The wheels still spin true and a cursory check did not show frame damage. The main damage was oddly located on the brakes and shifters--basically the part located most forward on the top side is scratched up bad, with the right brake control taking the worst of it. The helmet has two major impact marks on the outside. It also has several cracks that go completely through the padding, starting from near an ear and moving towards near center. I think it clearly shows my injuries could have been worse. Just looking at the helmet damage breaks me up. However, I am going to go forward from this point and regain what I have lost, and then go forward from there.  

Ten for Texas 2012

The Ten for Texas race, a local 10 mile event, is one of those races that I try to do when my schedule allows. This year was the fourth year out of six that I have been able to do this event. Since I've done this race for most of my recent running years it acts as a marker for me to compare how I have improved over previous years as I strive to work on a healthy and active lifestyle.

Race morning proved to be warm and humid, but I don't worry about such things since I was going to race no matter what the weather. However, this did mean I brought my handheld bottle with me and worked a nutrition plan around that by dissolving all my nutritional needs in that bottle and then the water stations served as "extra" for me to be able to take in enough additional water as needed.

In the days before the race I modified my race plan to be a bit more aggressive. I finished in 1:29:50 last year and wanted to beat that PR time by a fair bit. I was originally going to try to start at an 8:30 min per mile pace and then run according to what my heart rate would allow until I got to the last few miles. In my final estimation I thought I might be able to do better and changed my plan to starting at 8:00 minute miles before running what my heart rate goals would allow and then be willing to open up the effort level over the last three miles.

I started off in the midst of a crowd and it took me a bit to get free of that crowd. Fortunately, I was running generally on my desired pace at this point, so I tried to not waste too much energy by moving through the crowd. A friend of mine snapped this photo early in the race. I'm not exactly sure where it was, though I think is was in the first mile of the race since there are runners on both lanes of traffic and I am not yet covered in sweat.

By the time I got to the first water station at mile 2 there were other runners around but not enough to limit my own running. By mile 3 I'm starting to feel the effect of the warmer weather and realize that I am sweating a good bit but I am only now starting to reach my lactate threshold heart rate. As each mile goes on it starts to feel a little harder on me after mile 5. I see Karen and she runs with me for a bit in the 7th mile of the race. I really don't feel at my best by I know I have a pretty good race going on and just need to keep moving forward as best I can. My pace starts to drop some more in mile 7 but I am able to open up my effort for the last 3 miles and let my heart rate go higher by this point. That is good because this is also when my pace takes a drop off. I imagine I would have had to drop that pace more if I was still trying to maintain a lower heart rate as I was earlier in the run. I am pretty much running on fumes by the last mile, and I am not even sure how my pace does not drop more than it did as I think I am running on willpower alone at this point. Finally, I am able to manage a small sprint at the finish and am very relieved to be done. I measured the race at 10.08 miles and my miles splits were as listed here as I finished in 1:22:36.
Mile 1 8:00
Mile 2 7:50
Mile 3 8:07
Mile 4 8:16
Mile 5 8:07
Mile 6 8:07
Mile 7 8:12
Mile 8 8:23
Mile 9 8:31
Mile 10 8:29
last 0.08 miles 0:34 (Obviously, the disagreed a bit. Interesting that they were exactly together on miles 1-6, and then they disagreed a bit on each mile after that.)

So, I do get that PR that I set out for as beat last year's time of 1:29:50 by 7:14 as my plan appears to give me a result that I believe was pretty much my best possible time for the day, and I think that is something that I can be happy with. I think my most notable observation on this race was that my slowest mile (run in 8:31) was faster than all but my single fastest mile in last year's race (8:21 as I sprinted out mile 10 last year). This year's "sprint" proved I did not have quite the same amount of extra power left near the end of this year's race. I finished with the 27th fastest time out of 115 in my age group and 254th out of 1,920 overall.

This photo was snapped with about a quarter mile left in the race as I attempted to push myself to the finish.

This photo is from near the Mile 9 mark in 2007. My how things have changed for me in these five years!

After all of this fun, I spent much of the day tracking a couple friends in the Ironman World Championship in Kona, Hawaii. Unfortunately, my friend Chris did not complete this year's race as she pulled out after 93 miles of cycling. However, she is looking forward to taking on the Ironman distance again, including a chance to qualify for a return trip to Kona--not bad at all for a woman about to turn 71 years old! However, my friend and coach Michelle did complete her race. She finished 8th in the women's 35-39 age group and was the 19th amateur woman of any age to cross the finish line as she finished a tough day that included some bike mechanical issues and a minor injury in 10:19:14  and later referred to this as her "first Kona and second Ironman" race. I suspect she is already beginning to plan a return trip to improve her top 10 finish to a podium finish after this experience.

Healthy Snacking

On this slightly rainy weekend that has me between races and major training events, the idea of writing about healthy snacking options came out of a conversation with a friend.

I work primarily in an office environment, with the occasional option to be out of the office. These situations offer ample opportunity to indulge myself during between meal periods, and that is something that I have long fought to control. For much of the recent year I have felt more successful than not at healthy snacking. I don't like to go more than a couple hours between meals or snacks as I feel like doing so puts me at a greater risk of overeating at the next meal. During heavy training cycles, I may need to eat almost every hour just to consume enough healthy calories to keep my body properly fueled. I know it might seem difficult for some to accept, but when you're burning an average of 2,000 calories on your "regular" training days you need to eat at least 4,000 calories to maintain your body's needs. It can be really hard to eat that many calories when you commit to eating a healthy diet.

As to my specific strategy, it really is very simple. I make sure that I provide myself an opportunity to be near a healthy snack option as much as possible. My desk drawer will keep a stock of healthy options available. These may include small amounts of nuts, mini CLIF Bars, microwave popcorn, protein powder mix, and so on. In my refrigerator at work, I keep apples (I like them cold.), almond milk (low calories and mixes well with protein mixes.) for snacks. I also will keep salad mix, including fresh spinach and/or arugula, plush a low calorie dressing for many lunches. After this as a base, I need only keep some chicken breast in the freezer, or bring something from home to add to the salad mix for a good meal.

My current protein powder of choice is the Vega One and Vega Sport line of products, which I also use for some of my racing electrolyte and caloric needs.The Vega One provides a good mix as a base supplement as part of my diet. The Performance Protein provides a healthy source of an extra protein supplementation during my heavier workout days.

During the past year, I have become more conscious of the importance of my diet as part of my attempt to live an overall healthy lifestyle. I'm far from perfect, and still enjoy the occasional ice cream, cupcake or similar unhealthy treat, but this is a true treat and no longer the rule of my snacking options. For the first time in more years than I can remember, I have kept a relatively stable weight all year. Other than for short periods related to my activity levels, I have spent most of the year between 175 - 179 pounds, which is something I never thought possible a few years ago.

I'd be happy to answer any questions asked by blog readers and would love to read your own ideas on the subject of healthy snacking by posting as a comment to this blog post.

 

CASA 5K Race Report

I decided to do the CASA Superhero 5K fairly recently and worked in into my weekend's training regime. CASA stands for Court Appointed Special Advocates. CASA is (from their website): 
"We are Montgomery County’s only court-appointed organization advocating for abused and neglected children. CASA Advocates are appointed by Judges to watch over and advocate for abused and neglected children, to make sure they don’t get lost in the overburdened legal and social services or languish in inappropriate group or foster homes. Advocates stay with each case until it is closed and the child is placed in a safe, permanent home. For many children their CASA Advocate will be the one constant adult presence in their lives during this time."

I was doing this race with my good friend and fellow crazy distance athlete, Karen. Karen was going back to defend her age group title from last year and is the one who told me about this race. It turned out that there were several hundred people doing the kids 1K or the full 5 K races this year, which I gathered was a significant increase from the last 2 years. Packet pickup went smooth as Karen picked up my packet due to work schedule issues on my part. (Thanks again, Karen!)

Karen and I also carpooled to the race site and discovered that arriving early gets you the worst possible parking--or at least the farthest parking from the event site. We had a nice long walk along part of the running trail to the event site. After we arrive we chatted with friends before getting in a 1.1 mile warmup along the course start. This 5 K is a trail race through the state forest and is a mix of rock and dirt trails (mostly dirt), and given recent rails there was a good bit of mud and water on the course--although the trails were well-constructed and were also in better condition than I expected them to be.

As the race came close to the start, Karen and I positioned ourselves just behind the first group of fast runners and prepared for the race to begin. When the gun (or whatever it was) went off we took off together and stayed together for almost half the course. The early part of the trail that we ran earlier seemed to be on of the best parts of the course, in terms of condition. Running was a matter of avoiding getting boxed in by other runners and areas of poor terrain. The path began to open up after a half mile, but it really took close to a mile before I wasn't always near another runner. After the first mile there was a lot more mud on the course and I attempted to run along the more densely packed mud where jeep tires usually drove through for better footing. I was forced to adjust my path numerous times in search of more solid footing during the race. The second and early third miles seemed to have the worst of the mud along the course, but that is what you get with a trail run on some days. I think this may have worked to my benefit as I have some experience in running on muddy trails, and that is a different experience than running on concrete. In the last mile of the race I was trying to use the runners ahead of me as pacing guides, though I kept catching and passing them one after another. Although I was trying to run a controlled pace that was as fast as I could maintain for the race, when I hit a half mile left I pushed with about all effort I could muster for the rest of the run. This last effort made my last mile my fastest by several seconds, even thought it had worse overall footing than the first mile. I ended up finishing in 23:06. Just short of a 5 K PR for me on roads, but definitely a PR for a trail 5 K.

After catching my breath I walked back along the course a bit to cheer on the other racers finishing, including Karen, who wasn't too far behind me. After we regrouped and got a bit of rest and post-race nutrition, we went to see the posted run timing for the race. As it turned out Karen not only defended her age group title from last year but was this year's Women's Masters winner (runners over 40) and I won my age group by over a minute. Wow! 

I entered this year never having won any racing awards and have now won my age group in three straight competitive events. That kind of success was beyond imaginable for me less than a year ago. I hope in some way my success gives hope and inspiration to other athletes overcoming obesity and years of inactivity (or some other personal situation). 

Me, just after getting my award.

Posing with some superheros and other age group winners.

Karen and I after a successful race.

1st Place Age Group Award :-)

 

Clear Lake Sprint Triathlon 2012

It's been a few year's since I've been willing to do this particular race. The International Distance race from 2009 was my third and worst triathlon, and I am a bit surprised it didn't chase me out of the sport. However, this year I am back to give one last good triathlon race effort for 2012, and to support my friend Karen and several OutRival Racing teammates, in their race efforts.

I was up early to drive my friend Corey down to the race with me. My pre-race nutrition plan was a simple one: eat one Peanut Butter Chocolate Builder Bar each hour until an hour before the race, with a shot of liquid nutrition in 8 ounces of water about 20-30 minutes before the race as well. After I set up my transition area, I meet up with my friends and chat a bit before settling into some pre-race rest and warmups. I was also able to see the longer course triathletes begin their swim as I was in my preparation zone.

Swim: After seeing a lot of swimmers in my wave I decide to line up to the outside and plan to slide over as the wave thins out. I swim in a strong and purposeful manner, though not at my hardest. I am able to angle back into the main swim lane without too much trouble and take the turn and line up to the laddered exit and cross the mat in 10:49.1. (13th in my AG)

T1: I had a pretty good T1, I had a long run in and back out trying to weave around walkers and people standing around. Due to the tightness of the lane between the racks, I end up rolling my bike over towels, shoes and stuff left in the way. 1:31.2 (2nd in my AG)

Bike: I started a bit slower than I could go until I adjusted and got into a rhythm and then I pushed as hard as I could and stay around my lactate threshold heart rate or just above that. I passed a ton of people and felt very strong on the bike. I got passed by two elite wave cyclists and two age groupers, though the age groupers only passed me as I took a drink going in a turn, one of them I passed right away and the other just stayed right in front of me since we were near the end of the bike and there was a lot of other bike traffic we were both passing around. 38:21.7 (2nd in AG)

Photo from the TriHou Facebook page where I was about to dismount the bike

T2: Not much to say, I was in and out pretty quickly. I had a very minor issue with one shoe and paused very briefly to grab my water bottle, chug a drink and toss it back toward my stuff. I saw one guy in my AG just in front of me and passed him heading out. 1:08.8 (4th fastest in my AG, though one of those had a favorable spot not near the rest of the AG athletes). It's strange to think of it now and not notice it then, but there didn't seem to be any bikes around my rack other than the one guy I chased out of transition.

Run: I ran and I ran. When we went on wet grass and a grass hill, I just kept running, passing several on the grass and the hill. My HR was in the 170s and I kept going close to as hard as I knew I could keep going at this point. I was wondering why I did not see anyone marked in my AG as I ran (though some numbers were smudged). After the turnaround I saw another ORR athlete behind me and he caught me a bit later. I couldn't remember if he was in my race or AG or anything for certain, but I tried to keep him as close as possible for motivation and pushed harder in the return part of the run. I was feeling about out of steam late in the run and just pushed my run effort out until I saw the finish and found some energy. As I was about 50 yards from the finish line and I heard a runner behind me and found the energy to go a bit harder to the end. 16:12.9 (3rd in AG--the second and third place finishers were slightly faster on the run).

Total - 1:08:03.9 Now I know I have been improving and took on this race to provide my best competitive effort, which I did, though I still surprised myself with this time as I didn't see myself finishing faster than the 1:10:-1:12:00 range for this race at best, and more likely closer to 1:12:00 to 1:15:00.

I hung around to talk to friends and cheer in teammates for a while and had some fun. As I go around to see my finishing time and place, I run into Corey who high-fives me and tells me to check the results and smiles. I see Mike and Kelly of ORR near there as well, who ask me if I'd seen them and they smile and tell me to go look. In truth, I had thought I could compete for a podium spot with a good race, and I did my best to leave all my effort on the course this day in that effort. I figured these friends were confirming my effort to secure a podium finish in this race was a success, but to see my name on top of the AG was a bit of a shock, but a happy shock nonetheless. Yes, I won my age group! "WOW!!!!" doesn't describe how I felt.

Award acceptance photo taken by Corey. I also got a tub of Strawberry HEED endurance drink.

I know I won my AG in Montgomery a month ago but that was a much smaller race. Here I was not only first in a competitive AG of a competitive race, but was the 26th male and 27th overall of nearly 500 athletes and I did not see myself as being THAT athlete. 

My friends say that this doesn't surprise them, though it surprises me. I may not feel like I am letting any false limits define what I am capable of achieving, but I guess I better start thinking that like my friends now and accept that things have changed for me in all ways except perhaps how I saw myself.

Oh, and just to fill in the details left open in my report above, it turned out the guy I passed in transition finished in 4th place and that the reason I didn't remember seeing anyone else in my age group (ages are written on the triathlete's calf) is that I was actually ahead of them all.As it turned out, I needed every bit of speed I had for this win, seeing as how the second place finisher was 11.1 seconds behind me and the third place finisher was 10.0 seconds behind him.

Joylessness, Joyfulness and Turtles

I've had my share of joyless times of late. Injuries, illness, feelings of being overworked while problem after problem mounts at my job, and so on......

The truth is I have a lot of good things going on for me....a great wife and young adult daughters that are turning out to be good women, a good job that has provided me with a respected position and has me doing exciting things within my chosen occupation and last, but far from least, the drive and ability to have changed my life and chose to participate in activities in which most people would dream participating--if they even dared to dream boldly.

In the last week, my troubles felt like they continued on.

However, I began to realize the joyless moments did not minimize the joyful moments. We all have periods of of darkness in our lives, but what matters is how we deal with them. This past week I was swimming at the pool when I was asked to split a lane by a friend and coach with my training group. However, in this case the coach was no ordinary coach, but was professional triathlete Sarah Gray. As I swam back and forth having a better than average swim for myself, I got to see Sarah blow by me time and again, leaving me feeling like I was a turtle (in fact I logged this turtle reference in my personal log). However, in this case I took joy from having a good swim and did not feel down at all just because I was not as fast as another athlete, in this case a professional athlete who can swim circles around most people.

As the week went on I saw other bright spots spots being revealed in the midst of darker spots. These spots stood out to me in stark contrast to the darkness that surrounded them. The more I noticed this, the more I realized the good things around me. In fact it is the days with little joy in them that have reminded me how blessed I am normally and how much joyfulness usually is present in my life. In a strange way it has been the joyless moments that have allowed me to have a greater appreciation for the better moments of my life, which in turn allows my to better appreciate those moments which contain less joy.

Due to circumstances in my weekend I was unable to conduct my normal bike training workout and I replaced this with an extra run. I ran almost 8 miles on Saturday and then I also ran 8 miles on Sunday for my normal bike workout. Saturday's workout was late in the afternoon as storms had come by and narrowly missed the area, which helped cool things a bit. As I was a several miles into the run I came across a pond with several turtles along the edge. As I stopped for a closer look, several of the turtles came out to look at me.
 

As the turtles came closer I took a step forward. This caused all but the closest one to return to the relative safety of the water. However, the closest turtle kept coming until we were within a foot of each other, and then we stared at each other for a moment. It seemed that my turtle comparison earlier in the week was not accident and I felt that I was just fine with the turtle comparison. As a great friend told me when I recounted this story, turtles are strong and long-lived. While they are also cautious, they are not as slow as many believe them to be--particularly in their natural surroundings. After a moment I left the turtle and continued with my run. This was just a long slow run but it was faster than expected while I maintained an appropriate training heart rate for a long, slow run.

In the course of training, most of my advances have come from the judicious application of long, slow training to improve my body systems. In this case, the turtle may be the perfect symbolism for me and my advances.

As I came into my run this morning, I expected a slower run due to it being a back to back daily run. I was wrong in this case as it proved to be a very good run while staying low in my heart rate zones. Not only that, today but I was also feeling great! A little more than halfway through this run I realized that, for the first time since returning to an active lifestyle, I had felt the feelings of complete joy and serenity while running in a way that felt it was a natural run that I could maintain all day. I've know for some time that I could run all day--in fact I did it in February--but this was the first time that I had reclaimed those feelings from my runs while I was in my 20's.

That felt truly joyful!

Bridgeland 2012 Race Report

It's been a long couple weeks since the Bridgeland Sprint Triathlon and I just kept putting off my blog post about it. I finally made myself sit down and put this report out before I forgot more details and made this even more difficult.

After my last blog post my ankle seemed to heal fairly quickly and I was excited to be doing Bridgeland as a fun C-level race. However, the Wednesday before the race saw me dealing with pain on the sole of my left foot -- the previous ankle issue was my right foot.As it turned out, I had had a plantar wart festering in the ball of this foot for several months and it picked now to blow up in size and cause pain to plan weight upon my foot. A Friday trip to the doctor provided freezing treatment, and with it I had hope that I might be able to do the triathlon. Due to my foot issues I was unsure if I would be doing this race as recently as the morning before the race. However, my foot seem lasted to hold up decently well on a short Saturday morning run and I decided I was going to give Bridgeland a go. If anything, I was over-rested for this race given the recent foot injuries limiting my training a bit over the last two weeks.

On Sunday morning, my foot was giving me a bit of discomfort as I was going through the morning pre-race routine, but nothing more than being at a nuisance level. I got to the race site early and was in transition as it opened. I was set up quickly and went to lay by the OutRival Racing tent for 30-40 minutes. After that I got up to make a final check of transition before moving on to the swim start area. In this timeframe I made the first of several trips to the porta potties. Eventually I had everything worked out and met up with friends over near the swim start. My race plan was simple for today, try to get a good swim and then take what I could from the bike and run and enjoy this day.

Since I was in one of the early waves (4th or 5th) I stayed near the start are and quickly lined up my my group. When the time came for my wave I found a spot a bit to the left and in front of some less confident looking swimmers. When the horn went off, I found myself going at a solid rate with only a few pink (my wave) caps ahead of me. Somewhere near 150-200 meters in (maybe a bit more), I was suddenly hit with severe abdominal cramps for a moment which caused me to stop and breastroke for a short bit. I regained my composure and swam about 50-75 more meters and had more cramps that felt more severe than before. At this point I started to feel concerned and looked for a canoe or buoy that I might need to swim towards. Since neither was close I chose to breastroke for a bit as the cramps came and went for a moment or two. Suddenly and somewhat uncontrollably, I passed a lot of gas from my system and began to feel better and I soon resumed my swim, though this time at a more moderate pace for most of the rest of the swim. I exited the swim in 13:21. This was well behind my original expectations, but better than I imagined it would be as I got out of the water after my experience that day. :-/

As I completed this rather eventful swim, I exited and I found I could initially run on the carpeted path to transition, though after a minute my foot hurt enough that I had to walk and then limp my way to my bike. I had stashed some extra bandages for my foot near my bike and reapplied them to the sole of my left foot, and then I put on thicker socks than normal and also put on my bike shoes before leaving the transition area. Given the pain in my foot, I was moving pretty slow all through the transition process. T1 was: 4:02.

After I mounted my bike I started off at at good cadence with a slightly easier gear to keep pressure easier on my foot. Even in my current state I passed many more people than passed me on the bike. Although I specifically was not using a Garmin or bike computer to monitor my pace because I did not want to try to force myself to go faster than my comfort level would indicate, I was watching my heart rate and that heart rate stayed lower than I would normally expect it to be for a race effort. When my foot pain would bother me more than I wanted to bear, I would ease up on the gears a bit and try to make it up in cadence of my pedaling. My foot definitely hurt more as the cycling continued. In my mind I figured I was probably averaging in the 17-18 mph range , and maybe 19 mph if I was lucky. I was very surprised to see that I averaged 20.6 mph, which was very close to last year's bike speed (20.7) but under much less optimal personal conditions this time out. When I neared transition I took my feet out of the bike shoes and pedaled with them on top of the shoes. This was the least painful part of pedaling for me, probably because the distribution of weight from my foot to the top of the shoes kept pressure spread away from the area of the plantar wart. I finished the bike in 37:54 at 20.6 mph.

Once I got back to T2, I had to limp my way back to the bike and I gave a moment of thought to stopping the race, as I figured running would be more painful than cycling. However, I also thought I should start out and go from there. I took some extra care to get my shoes on comfortably and make sure my bandages were properly positioned on my foot. When I stood up it seemed fine and I jogged out of transition feeling good enough to give it a go. I finished T2 in 2:38.

The run was a very interesting one. All I really hoped for was a comfortable run with a minimal amount of foot discomfort. I felt good starting out and tried to keep a quick and easy cadence without forcing a pace. I found that what seemed a quicker and shorter stride felt less painful to me and ran like that. My heart rate was pretty much in the mid to upper 150s for most of the run, though I didn't much look at my watch and tried to just run on feel. This would be about 10-15 beats lower per minute than I would have normally expected for a true race effort. I hit the lap button at each mile (apparently, other than the mile 3 marker that I did not see). Mile 1 was in 8:04 with a 155 avg HR. I noticed about a half mile in that I was feeling more pressure than pain in my foot and tried to block it out from there and enjoy the run. Mile 2 was a bit slower in 8:23 with a 161 avg HR, I was still going on feel and trying to keep things comfortable and was just glad I wasn't falling apart from my foot around this point. The last 1.1 miles were finished in 8:18 with a 169 avg HR. I waited until getting up the grassy hill off the path near the end before trying to pick up my pace to the end. I was still feeling good and just went with it, though I could definitely feel my foot much more when I ran harder. I finished in a surprisingly strong 24:45 run considering my injured status. If I'd been healthy I would have expected better, but considering the status of my foot I expected a high 20 minute range run with some walk breaks thrown it. Last year's run pace was 9:16 per mile and I felt healthy and gave a harder effort, this year was 7:59 avg run pace.Overall time was 1:22:42, over 4 minutes faster than last year, though a different course. Overall I had a better race this year while feeling sick and having a bad foot. I'm thinking a healthy me could have finished at least 10 minutes better than that and maybe more.