First of all, I wanted to thank you all for the support, as always. I loved Fargo Lion’s “Slow is smooth and smooth is fast” motto, it helped!! And I also followed dave.schultz’s advice to warm up, which I only do in shorter races.

I case you don’t know, this is the biggest women-only race. The Mini started women’s running and has become a great tradition since its creation in 1972, and has amazing elite field every year; but here’s some inspirational words from Mary Wittenberg, NYRR’s Director: “We line up each year to run because we can. We’re following in the footsteps of the women who ran before us and paved the way.”

My pacing strategy did not work at all, but I am more than happy with how this race unfolded. Main note: there is a reason why the corrals are there. I was placed in the first corral, because of my pace before I got injured and stopped running for 6 months. Well, people were passing me for 2 miles: not only it messed up my pace, but I didn’t like feeling like I was in the way. I’ll probably move back in the next races.

My pace in the last 10k (in December) was 7:51, but in my 4 and 5 milers in training in the last weeks I was doing 8:50s and 8:40s, so I decided I’d stick to 8:50 for the first 3 miles and then see what happened… Well, being up-front fired me up a bit but I was proud that I could focus and scale back. First mile was 7:32. Ooooops. The good thing is that I was able to keep up a constant pace, which I didn’t think I could, mostly in Central Park, famous for its rolling crazy hills. My pace average at the end of the race was 8:13, which is a LOT better than the same race last year where I clocked an average of 8:25 miles.

That means there’s hope for 2009; that, even if I had to hold back for 6 months, I am in better shape now than last year at the same time… I can’t wait to start training, the sky is the limit!

Of course, I should still have followed the plan or I wouldn’t be in pain today, and on ice yesterday; but oh well, it was just SO MUCH FUN to be back out there racing.. and to think I had dreaded this race so much! This was one of the funnest races ever, you’ll see proof soon, but for now here’s a little teaser: a picture NYRR posted in their Race Report, that’s me in the middle!

Run On!