4 on the 4th Race!

Laurie and me post-race!

Today, I ran the York 4 on the Fourth, in York, ME.  I decided to run it a few days ago; Laurie was going to be doing a 12 mile long run Saturday morning, and offered to pace me for the race.  This was my first time running the race, and I'm really glad I signed up! 

The race starts at 8am, so this morning, I woke up at 5:15, ate breakfast and drove Max to my parent's house so he could play with them while I ran.  The race started at York High School, and I was able to pull in the parking lot at 7:10, pick up my bib and use the clean, non porta-potty! Yay for runs that have access to nice, indoor bathrooms!

 Laurie arrived shortly thereafter, and she and I did a 2 mile warm-up.  I felt really good on the warm-up, and really happy about the weather! It was in the high 60s and partly cloudy.

   We talked about my race strategy; the last (and only) four mile race I ran was in 2014 for the April Fool's 4 Miler in Salisbury.  I was pretty happy with that time (30:02), but figured it was because the course was super flat, and the temperatures were really cool.  I was hoping to stay right around 30 minutes, but would be of course excited to get under 30!  Laurie told me that we would stay right around 7:30, and if the pace picked up, she would signal for me to slow down.

  

As we were getting ready to line-up, Laurie and I ran into one of my Six03 friends, Jeff.  Jeff had a time goal he was hoping to set as well- we wished each other luck, and told each other that we would catch-up afterwards.

When the gun went off, I listened to Laurie and didn't do an immediate sprint so that I was gasping for air by the first 1/2 mile, we kept it comfortable enough, but still speedy (for me.)  The first mile was completed in 7:09!

  By the 2nd mile, I was still feeling good, there were only a few rolling hills, and then the rest of the course was flat (and followed the ocean.)  I made sure to take water at all of the stops, and made sure to listen to Laurie.  I kept looking for the time clock for 2 miles, and hoped that it would be under 15 minutes...and it was! (Mile 2: 7:19)

The 3rd mile was when I started to get super affected by the humidity, I kept telling myself that I was more than half way there, and it was all flat.  There were a ton of spectators which really helped!  Laurie kept pointing out people ahead of me to zero in on as a goal to pass- it worked, but I was definitely tired.  When I saw that the Mile 3 marker clock read 21:50, I realized that had I been running a 5k, I would have probably PR'd! (Mile 3: 7:20)

Laurie told me that I had 1 mile left, and I had time "left in the bank" for staying under 7:30.  I was really hurting, super hot, and just wanted to be done.  I kept telling myself that another mile was nothing, but it really felt like a lot!  By the time we turned into the high school for the last quarter mile, my legs felt like lead, and I felt like I was going to throw up!  I finally got to the finish line and was ecstatic to see my time of 29:45! (Mile 4: 7:27)  

Afterwards, I drank two bottles of water and had like 19 slices of watermelon.  I thanked Laurie for pacing me.  I ran into Jeff and he met his time goal as well!

I definitely did positive splits, but at least it was a 15 second PR!

I checked my results and saw that I was 4th in my age group, 11th overall woman and was 107th out of 825 people. 

I'll definitely plan on running next year!