Double race weekend March 17 and 18, 2012
St Patty's Day 8K and Florida Beach Halfathon

Saturday's race was an 8K St. Patty's day run down in Venice. We arrived in plenty of time, around 7am, to pick up our packets and use the bathroom a couple of times before the 8am start. I wasn't sure how I was going to run this race. I had the half marathon the next day. Once I got running though, I felt pretty good, so I decided to push it for this race.

The first mile was great. We ran north, from Sharky's restaurant, turned right, at the edge of the airport and headed towards the canal. At the end of that road, we get onto the Venice trail system that runs along the water front. It's a nice, wide, paved trail. We head south on that to the end then turn to the right. The course is basically a big circle. By mile 2 I am feeling a little slow down. I catch up to a young boy who has been running hard. He sees me to his left and then speeds up again. I guess he didn't want this old lady beating him! :)

I started slowing down a little by mile 3. I could feel the fatigue of racing the past few weeks and I think my bad eating habits over the past week didn't help either. The last mile was run near the beach, heading back towards Sharky's Restaurant. When I saw the turn off the main road that lead to the finish, I pushed it hard and passed this woman that had been ahead of me for a little while. :)

Finished with my best 8K time. 42:07! The 8K was just under 5 miles (4.96). I was off my best 5 mile race pace by over a minute. Need to get used to the humidity again.
Splits: 8:13/8:22/8:35/8:44/8:10

Sunday's race

This was my 39th half marathon. I'm happy I ran it, but not happy with my time. I knew by mile 2 that my legs were toast. Too many races over the past few weeks. I decided to treat it as a fun run and just take it easy. I ran walked using 4/1, then 3/1 and finally 2/1 intervals. It was just so hot! The best part of the run was getting a few photos of me were you can see air under both feet! I've been trying to get some photos like that for a while.

Finish: 2:15:24