Monday, November 15, 2010

Peachtree City 50K

50k 6:35:19. Knee buckled at 14.5 miles.
Great weather. 40F at the start. 68 at the finish. 5.18 loop course. Loops 1 &2 right on pace of 10:13. Discard vest at the start of 3nd loop. Feeling good. Forcing myself not to pick up the pace. Remembering 2 laps is only 10 of 31 miles. Course was gently rolling inclines. Knee starting twitching at mile 8 but on real problem. Mile 12.25 knee just buckled for a second. Some how I managed to pick the pace for the next two miles. Mile 14 the knee starting buckling on every decline . No matter how slight. 15 mile/ 3 loop in 2:41Tight lipped x. Down hill for that point. Telling myself at this point to not DNF. Not working. Club member Wanda T. came out to support me. She run mile 20-25 with me. We even hit a 12:50 mile at one point. Compared to 14:00 miles I was doing. Wanda had to leave for a Hawks game. She gave me a bagel and I decided to walk until a finished it or for about a mile. It was a long incline. 1 mile past the finish line I seriously considered turning around and DNFing(27 mile mark). The only thing stopping me was explaining to Wanda after running 5 miles with how I managed to not finish. Onward I trudged. The last 4 mile I mainly walked. Runners starting passing me at every mile. With about 1/2 mile to go and 1 last tunnel. I look up after exiting a tunnel and to my amazement I see the finish line. I have never been so happy in 20+ years of running to see a finish line.Big grin Tried to run but it was a no go. Walked the last 1/4mile in pure ecstasy. Plan to shadow box the medal and picture. This race will make getting a PR easy.Smile