Rock the Relay Recap

Last weekend I ran Rock the Relay, which was a benefit for Back on My Feet Indy. When we heard the race was going to happen, Glenn and I planned on running it as a two person team. We’ve ran on a relay together a couple of times, but not a two person relay which I really wanted to do. We thought his injury would be healed up, but unfortunately he’s still on the mend.

I found an awesome teammate through twitter (how great is that… love twitter!) – Bryon Humphrey and he happened to be quite speedy. As a two person team you end up running six, 2.2 mile loops, handing off to your teammate every loop.

Waiting to start- look I’m all ready to work my watch & I still messed it up. #par

I’m training for a half marathon PR and thought this race would be a really good workout to add to my training. It’s a full marathon relay and you can run as an individual all the way up to a 6 person team. I’m very familiar with the race, as it is the same relay we do every fall for Back on My Feet. I’ve only ever been the race director though, never the runner.

Although it wasn’t a competitive field, we were still happy to win our division and take second place overall. The first place team was a 3 person male team and we ended up being just 23 seconds behind them. Had I known how close we were, perhaps I wouldn’t have wussed out so bad on my 5th lap.

Team “We will Rock You” post race.

I ran the lead lap for our team and had us in forth place behind 3 guys, it felt hard but I was trying to not go out too hard. I’m terrible with my watch and messed up my splits from the start. So, I’m not sure what my lap splits were for the 2.2, but I know what my mile splits were for the most part… there was a mile and half in there where I’m not sure what they were because I left my watch running on accident.

Lap 5 was really hard. I was starting to mentally check out and wanted to be done. I know that Katie and Michele both do 3 X 2 mile repeats and I always admire their speed and the work they put in for those sessions. Very fast.

It’s just a badass workout really. So doing 6 made me nervous and I knew I couldn’t go too fast if I wanted to finish under 7 minute pace.

Here are my mile splits: 

Lap 1 – 6:35, 6:37

Lap 2 – 6:41, 6:42

Lap 3 – 6:40, 6:42

Lap 4 – 6:45, 6:46

Lap 5 – 6:50, 6:50

Lap 6 – 6:47, 6:36

(There’s a mile or so missing in there from when I messed up my watch- who knows what the split was)

My goal was to run them 6:40-6:50 pace, so I’m happy with the consistency, but at the same time it made me a little nervous about my goal for when I race 13.1. Running 13.1 without stopping is a completely different story than running it in 2.2 mile segments with 13 minute breaks in between. I’m not sure which is harder. I think they are both hard in different ways. When you do the stop and go thing, your body is just starting to get into, “ok, I think we are done working out mode” right when it’s time to ramp it back up. And obviously with the no stop and go thing, you get no breaks. Both hard.

Glenn brought Marshall out to cheer me on, but they only stayed a few minutes- it was really cold!

For anyone looking to do a fun relay with your friends – consider the Back on My Feet 42K Relay coming up in September. If you are training for a race, it can serve as a great speed session. Besides the good speed work, it’s fun because you can hang out and socialize with your friends and the other runners when you are waiting for your lap.

AND- we had some Back on My Feet teams out at the race and everyone was having a great time-

Look at this happy group! Jimmy & James ran their first half marathon the following week at Carmel!

Phil, Lee, Me & Chrissy

Great Day for running- thank you Kim and Heather for putting on a great race!