Moose Relay

My sister set up 4 teams for the Moose 4x2.5 mile relay, I was on board because I had no race planned for this weekend.  Then of course I got injured, but I said I'd still run since I'm running (slowly) every day.  My plan was to run somewhere from 6:00 to 6:30 pace.  I got up before 4AM and hit the bike for an hour.  After that I drove down to Chelmsford and Petey and I ventured into Hart pond.  We ran an hour in the water, then I headed up to Nashua.

I got to pick which leg I'd run so I took the leadoff leg.  That would be the easiest to figure when to warm-up, so off I headed to do the loop as a warm-up.  Mine Falls was busy with lots of folks enjoying the coolish (70's) weather, although it was a bit humid.  I felt pretty good warming up and decided I'd aim toward the 6:00 end of things.

At 9AM we were off.  I headed out in the top five, not sure of who was in the relay and who was doing 10m, and not really caring.  About 400m in Titus Mutinda moved to the front and I picked it up a bit to go with him.  I stayed close through about a mile then Titus just floated ahead.  I tried to close the gap, especially during the last 1/2 mile but never made much headway.  I was pleasantly surprised to hit the line in 13:46, just a tick over 5:30 pace.  That was a lot faster than I'd hoped for and I probably would have been even faster if I hadn't put in a couple of hours of workouts in the morning.

I did an easy 1.5 mile warm-down then went to watch all of the relay teams.  I ended up helping out with the finish line by handing out medals to all of the finishers.

The plantar fascia felt good, before, during and after.  I'll see what tomorrow brings.  I'm a little better than 50/50 that I'll race at the 10k National trail championships next week in NC.  Fingers crossed.