The One where I Make Excuses for Being Slow

I ran the Pirates Cove 50K yesterday. Here are my splits:
17K 1:56
24K 2:53
30K 3:24
37K 4:22
44K 5:28
50K 5:58

In other words, I was slow. At least I was consistent about it. (?) It was very cold and raining at the start line, and the forecast included a hazardous weather warning and called for hail, so I ended up way over-dressed and had to strip off several layers on the very first climb and shove them into my hydration pack. I realized what a mistake carrying that was, so I managed to drop it at aid stations so as to only carry it 20K total. I ended up running in tights, a long sleeve shirt, and lightly insulated Marmot windshirt most of the race. It never hailed, but it did rain on and off. I don't recall it being torrential for much of the time, but it was certainly wasn't dry for long either.

I thought I was going decently fast, and I got into the first aid station after 6.6K with some fast people, but I clearly slowed down after that. I thought I was doing fine because I was running everywhere that it's reasonable to run, but apparently to do well on this course you have to have a looser definition of "reasonable." I didn't remember how the aid stations in the first 30K were spaced out, so I didn't realize how slow I was going until 24K, at which point it was clearly too late to turn it up in order to break 5:00. I was so cold that I didn't really have the energy to look at my watch and think about splits, I couldn't really do much more than curl up inside my brain and think un-complicated thoughts like "keep running", "I'm tired of this song" or "Bob Boilen, you have weird taste in music."

So, not an amazing performance, but perhaps OK given the weather. Also, my stomach didn't cooperate and hadn't the night before either, so that's another excuse. I'm not sure when my next race will be, either this coming weekend or the one after. In the meantime I might try and do some speedwork so I can remember what it feels like to actually go fast.

Do I look tired? Because I was.

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