Armadillo Dash Race Report

The race – a closed loop course in College Station home of Texas A&M (Aggies). This is the 2nd annual running of this race and my first time there. The morning started driving out of my house around 4:15 and getting to the race around 6:30. Picked up my packet and went for a couple mile warm-up jog than hung around the start for the last 15 minutes until the 7:30 starting horn. Field size about 400 runners (mostly college students 1/2 my age).

Mile Split HR Comment
1 5:55 158 Target 5:50-6:00 – felt very easy – ended mile in 6th with front group of 4 and one straggler behind and then me. Started foggy (100% humid) but the sun was nearly done with burning it off.
2 5:46 170 Switched to HR here on out targeting 169 – no checking or watching splits – just HR. After first mile felt so easy I was kinda looking forward to the switch because I had a feeling there would be room to speed up – there was a little room – but not much – I knocked out the straggler but the group of 4 stayed together with me ~100 yards behind. Turned into the sun – sunglasses would have been nice.
3 5:50 170 One of the 4 dropped off the leader group and I ended up knocking him out – 4th place
4 5:49 171 One more of the front 3 dropped off the leader group and I knocked him out – 3rd place.
5 5:47 172 1st broke loose of 2nd and I started catching up to 2nd with 4th sticking close behind me. There was a goofy waterstop on a left turn on the right side of the street – I skipped the watershop and cut the tangent on the left side of the street and ended up passing 2nd going the long way around the turn and getting water. I think 4th got water too because he seemed to slip farther back – 2nd place with the leader still about 100 yards away.
6 5:51 170 1st place is slowly slipping ahead – keeping the miles in the HR zones. Doesn’t feel easy anymore – it’s definitely a push.
7 5:51 169 1st is slipping farther ahead – catching him seems pretty unlikely.
8 6:04 170 I wasn’t expecting any hills – I thought this was a pancake flat course – great – some practice for Boston on racing rolling hills. I ease up on the ups and push hard on the downs. I think this slowing on the uphills ended up giving 3rd place behind me some hope.
9 6:00 170 A few more rolling hills – 3rd place and I exchange positions a couple times – I’d go up hill and slow and he would pass me – than I’d speed down a hill and pass him back – eventually he passed me on a straight away and my HR was alarming high so I backed off a little and let him go. I’m 3rd.
10 6:08 168 Stayed pretty close to 2nd but slowly he was separating from me – rolling hills and the wind starting impacting the pace in places.
11 6:15 168 The wind picked up strong - running straight into it most of the mile. 2nd is looking harder and harder to get.
12 6:26 167 This whole mile was strong wind. I’m settled into a solid 3rd place.
13 5:53 168 Most of this mile the wind was crosswise.
13.1 0:29 170 Here’s my first glimps of my time – as I approach the finish I have no idea what to expect – for a moment I thought I saw 1:14:xx … then I got closer and saw the 1:17 click to 1:18…..ran it in for a finish time 1:18:11.

Race goal was to maintain 169 HR for the race – except a couple windy miles I was able to do this and taking first miles out the average was 169.5 so overall accomplished my goal for effort for the race. I think maybe at 60F I could have added a bpm or two to this goal - at 45F it would have been a more challenging goal.

3rd place got me a cool $50 which happens to equal the entry fee so except for a ½ tank of gas – I broke even on the race. At the awards ceremony they kept trying to give me more money. The called me up for 2nd ($100) but when I got up there I explained I got 3rd and told the who got 2nd – called him up on the stage and fixed the entry in the computer (chip didn’t register or something). So then they gave me 3rd and after I was getting ready to leave and they called me up again for 1st place Master ($50) – but when I got up there I told them I didn’t think I could win both – they agreed and fixed their computer rating and gave the Master prize to someone else – anyway I got a lot of stage time for my 3rd place.

This is a 4.5 minute PR for me. Except for Houston Marathon – this is my fastest equivalent race with a vdot of 59.9. Allowing adjustment figuring the wind/hills/humidity slowed me ~1.5 minutes – this race would be exactly in line with Houston – maybe slightly faster.

Deplete/Load Experiment – I don’t see a measurable improvement between my speed vs HR before the Deplete/Load and race day. So whatever happen at Houston to give a 10-15 second improvement vs pre-taper – I did not repeat today.

Graph below showing results of experiment compared to Houston - (I took out the windy and hilly miles). Armadillo points were right in line with my progressive run pre-deplete/load where Houston was still way faster - still wondering why. I may try the 10 day deplete instead of the 4 day in my next tune-up to see if that can replicate Houston's step change.



Thanks for reading – great race overall – only one Aggie beat me – 2nd place turned out to be a grad student on the schools tri-athlete team. 1st place was a drive up from Houston like me (it turns out I beat 4 minutes in Houston Marathon but he got me today). Next Race -- TBD - probably a 10k either Saturday if I feel recovered or the following Saturday.