Well, it has been a while since my last blog, and I really just wasn't writing anything because there wasn't much worth writing about. The weather has been hot, my legs have been sore, and my body has been tired. I did manage to squeak out a win at the Volkslaufe 10k, to pick up my second 3 liter beer stein, but other than that, running has been pretty uneventful. My mileage has been between 70 and 80 miles a week, all slower pace it seems, when at this point it should be closer to 90-95 and the pace should be coming down. GLR has always been a nice reset switch, which gets me back in the mindset of running more and running harder, and this year is no exception.
The relay started out with me popping off the first leg. I led the 6.5 mile trail leg from start until the last 100 meters, and took 2nd by about 10 feet. There were a lot of people on that leg that I have not beaten before, and a lot of other really solid runners, so I was very happy with it. That leg was by far my best, but I still managed to hit around 5:55 average pace on the trail legs, and about 5:20 pace on the road legs. I ended up running just under 32 miles for the relay.
Overall, our team took 3rd, which is about where I thought we would finish. On paper, we would probably be expected to take 4th. The top two teams were University of Michigan alums, and included several Division 1 All Americans, a three time Olympian, and some other guys that they pulled on that are at least 15:00 type of 5k runners. We somehow managed to beat the Eastern Michigan Alumni team. Their team was stacked, but one of their runners rolled his ankle pretty hard on the second day, so that helped us out a little. Looking at our team though, I don't think anyone was expecting us to do much...other then us. We were a mix and match group consisting of guys from Aquinas, Saginaw Valley, Wayne State, Oakland Community, Sienna Heights, and Eric was from some place in Missouri.
Throughout the relay, we were always between 1st and 4th place, and the bigger shocker, to the other teams, came on day 3. I will be honest, I was actually very surprised that we did as well as we did on the last day. By leg 3, we had taken a 1:30 lead on 2nd place. We opened the gap up to over 3 minutes, and were able to hold it through 10 legs...over half of the day. Even though we only ended up 3rd for the day, I think that we ran very well, and surprised a lot of people.
So now, my legs are a little sore, but are feeling better, tightness/close to injury feeling, than they did before, and I am ready to get the mileage and quality up to where it should be.
