I started this year with a great race in March ,and despite a foot injury, I still managed to get my 2nd fastest race time at Shamrock.  In preparing for Alexandria, I felt like I’ve been doing some of my best running this training cycle, with no injuries to speak of.  So going into this race,  I was feeling very confident….okay maybe a bit overconfident.

The Alexandria Running Festival is a race I’ve not heard of until this year.  Some of the proceeds from the race go to charity, which is great.  It seemed perfect since it’s not too far from me, and I can lodge for free in the D.C. area.  However, there were things I wasn’t sure about.  I heard it started late last year for some reason. When it’s already hot out, the earlier start the better in my opinion.  And upon looking at the course map, well, it’s literally convoluted.  If you don’t like turnarounds, then you’ll hate this turnaround out and back course.  There are several turnarounds along the course.  I did not look too closely at the course map prior to the race and did not realize there are many turnarounds.

The day before the race I went to the expo to pick up my race packet and listened to one of the speakers giving a presentation. The expo was very small with not many vendors at all. I was in and out in less than a half hour.   This is a small race with less than 1000 runners, so I am okay with a smaller expo.  The speaker seemed to give some good information on injury prevention.  Parking was easy and finding the packet pickup was not hard at all.

On Sunday I arrived early and did my normal prerace routine.  The race was to begin at 7:30, but just like the previous year, it did not start on time.  Eventually the race began around 8am, and it was already feeling warm.  My original plan was to PR in this race by running negative splits.  I would run around a 8:50 – 9:00 min pace for the first half and then run the back half faster.  I only did this once in a race, and it is my PR race.  But, I started thinking that I have trained really well for this race and that I could run the entire thing faster than before.  So I started out faster than I planned, with the first 2 miles being around 8:20 each.  I continued to average around 8:30 mile pace for the first 9 miles and then the heat started getting to me and fatigue started setting in.  My pace started slipping and I did not finish strong at all.  I just missed being under 2 hours by a couple minutes: 2:02.  I was disappointed, but I learned some lessons.  1) Stick with the tried and true plan.  I knew better not to go out fast, but I felt overconfident in myself, that somehow I was an exception to the rule.  2) Heat is another variable to contend with.  Maybe I could have stretched that 8:30 pace out to 10-11 miles in 50 degree weather, but it was hot!  I read that when our bodies heat up while running, it will feel 20 degrees warmer than it is outside. It that’s true, than it would have felt like it’s 90+ degrees outside and it did feel that way!

Who knows if I would have done better had I run negative splits.  I guess it would have depended on how I felt halfway through.  But I didn’t need to run as fast as I did for the first half or second half of the race.  During the last couple miles, some runners were still looking good, even passing me.  So I think I burned through my energy quicker than I wanted, and then got zapped by the heat.  From now on, I will just stick with negative splits.

As for this race, I would probably not run it again. I didn’t like the course much.  There were some areas where runners are running back towards you,  on a narrow path, and I didn’t like being constrained. And all the turnarounds breakup the momentum and affect the total time.  It’s hard to understand why this race cannot get started on time, on a hot day.  It is good that it’s a charity race and smaller, so keep that in mind – just have realistic expectations.

Rating: 2.8 out of 5 Stars

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