Run Hilary Run

Note from Hilary...

Jan. 25, 2012 - Welcome back to racing

My main goal in racing a few indoor races is to shake off the cob webs with a good race stimulus, as well as regain and refine my tactical strategies. My mile race this past weekend at the New Balance Games was perfect for both.

Going in, I was expecting we'd have a pacemaker because we have in past years, which is valuable for a race this early in the year considering no one really knows where they're at and is super confident to take it hard from the front. However, we unfortunately didn't have a pacemaker so the race quickly turned into championship-style racing tactics (sit in the pack and try to win).

Start of New Balance Games Elite Women's Mile.

I was position #1 on the line and didn't get out hard enough (race tactic reminder #1) so got boxed in for the first half of the race. We crawled through 400m in 75" and 800m in 2:27, which was already 12-13 seconds slower than goal race pace. I spent most of the first 4 laps knocking elbows with my competitors to protect my space and stay on my feed - great championship simulation. I finally found an opening and was able to get out into lane 2. With about 600m to go I decided to push hard for the finish and see how many women I could drop. I ran 2:11 for my final 800m and 63" for the last 400m and was in the lead until about 50m to go when Brenda Martinez used her 800m speed to sneak past me and take the win.

I was disappointing not to win, but I don't regret pushing the pace from a ways out because I think that is my strength at the moment until I get some more speed work under my belt. I'm going to do just that by running an 800m this weekend in Seattle, which will hopefully set me up well to run fast at Millrose Games back in NYC on Feb. 11...still waiting to see if I'm in, but fingers crossed.

New Balance Games race video, my race at 1hr30: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hGSY_K85r8&feature=relmfu

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