Cable Car Chase 2006

5.67 miles in 54:39 (unof­fi­cial). That’s rough­ly five min­utes longer than I ran the Cable Car Chase in 2004, so the result is slight­ly dis­ap­point­ing. My days of rest to allow my legs to recov­er did­n’t seem to help and I have what seem to be huge knots at the inside base of each calf. I’m going to sched­ule an appoint­ment with my chi­ro­prac­tic and mas­sage prac­ti­tion­er this week to see if there’s any­thing that can be done about it. My back and neck are all knot­ted up as well.

The biggest dis­ap­point­ment was that the com­bi­na­tion of caf­feine and food too close to race time gave me a case of the “run­ner’s trots” that made itself known dur­ing the Cal­i­for­nia Street climb. I did­n’t think I could go on but walk­ing instead of run­ning helped set­tle my sys­tem down. There’s no shame in walk­ing, but I’ve always prid­ed myself on set­ting a pace that does­n’t require walk breaks, even climb­ing hills. Now, I’ve nev­er faced this par­tic­u­lar prob­lem before, so I’m not too upset by hav­ing stopped to walk, but it added to my time and broke my per­fect record of nev­er hav­ing tak­en a walk break in a race (or train­ing, for that matter).

All that aside, the Cable Car Chase is one of my favorite races and it was a plea­sure to be back after miss­ing it in 2005. I had a great time and that’s absolute­ly what counts. I’ve also learned some things that I need to pay more atten­tion to in order to improve my performance.

Next week, the DSE Run­ners Potrero Hill Run. The hill is not that long, but it is steep and intense. It’s in my neigh­bor­hood and every time I run that course it cuts me down to slow­er than a 10 minute mile. It would be nice to have my legs back by then.