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Sunday, January 17, 2010

Larry Fuselier State Championship 25K Race Report

I got up early this Sunday morning following a wonderful Saints playoff win. I went over to Jim’s house and watched the game. Charles was there also. Jodie made a kick ass Saints cake for the game. I ate too much and drank a couple of beers.


For the 25K race in New Orleans I had to get up at 3:10 AM. I thought to myself – Who’s idea was it to do these races. Such an early morning after a Saints playoff win – remember, you have to celebrate these – this has only been the 3rd win in history.

So, we got to New Orleans at 7:00 AM about an hour from the start of the race. I was definitely not feeling good for the race. I was a little scared about the distance. Sure I had run 15 miles before but I have never raced the distance. I was unsure of my pacing.

I decided to set the GPS watch for the same time as last week – 6:55 minutes per mile. This would be a challenge. This 25K race (15.5 mile race) is on a levy along the Mississippi River. This means that there will be a wind – a strong wind. I started out and tried to follow the virtual trainer and I was successful for the most part. The wind was brisk but tolerable. I soon found myself in a group of strong girl runners. I tucked in behind them to break the wind. I kept with them for several miles. They started to break up and slow just a bit and I had to take the wind on by myself. This was brutal. I got caught up in no man’s land. I trudged along. As I neared the half way point the wind got even stronger. It was in your face. Another runner caught up with me. He was wearing a 70.3 New Orleans shirt from last year. I started to get chatty. We talked about the race for a couple of miles. I asked him his age to make sure that I would not get beat out – he was 30 – 34.

As we rounded the turn around the wind just stopped. There was no wind on the way back – the air was still – it almost got hot. As we talked he said he was from Hattiesburg – we had not really looked at each other but I quickly realized that this was Chris S. – a local triathlete – I know this guy. This is a small world.

I had been chasing a guy in a purple Louisiana shirt for all of the race and he was a few hundred feet ahead of me. Chris and I had run along for a couple of miles but I picked up the pace with 4 miles to go – Chris fell back a little bit.

I was on my own but my pace quickened. I was making good time and gaining on the man in purple – just not gaining quick enough. According to the virtual trainer guy I had lost 200 feet to him at the turn around but I was making time now. At mile 11 or so I broke even with the virtual trainer guy. And I just tried to put more time into him. I never caught the guy in purple – he finished 15 seconds ahead of me but I did put 300+ feet into the virtual guy. I finished 10th overall with a 1:46: xx time for the 25k averaging 6:53 minutes per mile. I saw one of the girls after the race and thanked her for breaking the wind the on the way out – she got a kick out of that!

Jim was not happy with his run at 2:01 but Charles beat his time of 2:20 by a minute. These races have been hard but they are paying off!

4 comments:

  1. james, you are just cranking out some fast miles...even after eating cake and drinking beer and waking up at 3:10am! impressive! very cool that you have done tri's with brett's wife and how cool it is that she is also an athlete? i've always like brett favre but even more so now that he's "old" based on most nfl player ages but can still whoop a$$.

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  2. thank you for the amazing comment/compliment today on my most!! Much appreciated :)

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  3. Phew, that is speedy! You are kicking some booty with your times James!

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  4. Great race and a fantastic pace, even if it was the morning of your last Saints celebration! Dallas fan here and of course, I knew in the back of my mind Favre would pound us into the ground. Good luck trying to contain him this weekend!

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