Perfect T-Day Morning

Oops, guess the racing isn't done yet! PRs all around Thanksgiving morning for the Prazak girls. Of them all, I couldn't be more proud of my sister Karlee. At the end of October, she decided she wanted to do her first 10k run—her first organized race—at the Dana Point Turkey Trot, and it was my mission to prepare her in 25 days. She had never run more than 4-5 miles, let alone at any sort of "race pace." However, she is athletic and exercises up at Cal Poly, so we at least had a fitness base to work with.

Her goal was to run the 10k in 1 hour, a ~9:39 pace. Definitely a challenge for her. Not easy for me, either: I had to assign her adequate training miles without overdoing it or causing injury in a very short time period. My first test as a coach. Her longest run was 7 miles, about two weeks or so before the race. I incorporated a good amount of cross-training too.

Then, of course, she got sick—as do most college students who party, work, study and burn the candle at both ends. She still trained, but even up to Thanksgiving morning she wasn't in perfect health. Basically coughing up a lung. The day before she was clearly uncertain if 1 hour was possible—and the way she sounded sick-wise, I wasn't too sure either.

Mom & sis on race morning... cold

But, my sister has that competitive spirit that is deeply innate in my family, and she got her 1-hour 10k! And now she says she's ready to tackle a sprint triathlon in 2010! Yaaayyyy.

My mom also pulled off a PR performance crossing at around 50 mins, a solid 3 min improvement from years past. Gettin better with age... excited to see what she pulls off at Vineman 70.3 next July!

See Mom in blue, bottom right, charging through. Notice the major congestion in this 4,000-person 10k!

As for my 10k, a few things: 1) The knee appears to be ok & problem fixed, let's hope, so I was cleared to run. 2) I'm in total recovery/offseason mode so no big expectations; however, 3) in all my previous 10ks I was in way crappier shape, so chances of me PRing were high even without trying my hardest.

Plus, Sara was running with me, and I think that got me to push the pace a little more... we were side by side the whole time, and according to my Garmin, we averaged 7:18 miles (negative splitting the whole time) and finished in just over 46 min. If that doesn't add up it's because the course was long, ~6.4 mi.

Sara & I

For the most part I felt pretty good; although, that "goodness" started fading toward the end... ouch. Amazing how fast you can lose fitness, learned this in the pool over the week too. Sara, however, was solid the whole time—or at least she looked that way. I love having fast friends/training partners, doesn't allow me any room to slack off!

I couldn't help but laugh, and be pleased, looking at my past performances at the DP Turkey Trot:

2007- 53:06, hey-o slow! Must have been hungover ;) I do remember a shoe coming untied.
2008- 48:24, coming off knee surgery & in torrential down-pouring the whole time
2009- 46:06, a week after half-ironman

I need to start building a running resume. I've actually never raced a half-marathon (only in 70.3s) nor have I had an "A" priority 10k—they've all been for fun or on a whim. But that will change in 2010, first with C-bad half in January. Should be interesting!

Prazaks happy like we're on prozac... I'm thining- feed me turkey and pumpkin pie mmm!