Decided to do a road race instead of the planned tempo workout, mainly because I didn't trust myself to get out the door and slog it out by myself. The idea didn't occur to me until late yesterday afternoon, by bedtime last night I had decided I wouldn't bother with the hassle of traveling and paying an entry fee. Woke up to temps in the 20s with a growing westerly wind and changed my mind. Throat felt better again this morning, almost back to normal, which made me think I wouldn't be hurting myself if I did do a race instead of a workout. Ran the course as a warmup, between the unremitting wind, uphill second mile, stiff legs, and overall lack of motivation I was having second thoughts. As the race started into the wind the plan was to tuck in behind whoever was dumb enough to lead and hang on as long as possible. The early rush was even faster than I expected, led by the usual high school morning glories who took the first 400m or so. The fast early pace was ruinous to one of the other guys driving the train, but the eventual winner made it stick. Spent the middle 2 miles of the race trading off 2nd and 3rd place, but I wasn't feeling up to putting in any definitive moves and let the guy go just before 3. Despite this, he came back to me a bit on the gently uphill final 800m, but not enough to make a heroic rush worthwhile. Given the way I'd been feeling going in and the windy conditions it went better than expected, although the workout I had planned would have been better in terms of building fitness. In a perfect world I would have done the workout at RLTAC. Mile splits as follows:
5:05 (felt a bit short, but way too fast nonetheless)
5:24 (uphill)
5:16 (downhill, but into the wind again)
5:15
post-cooldown I downed three cups of hot chocolate, more than I've had in a decade or so, evidence of how cold it was being out in that weather.
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