Talking Turkey 6 miler -- Sat. November 29

Strangely, this was my first run at this distance -- not quite a 10K. The start was late in the day, 1 p.m., so I had a normal breakfast, then did chores etc. and left about 11:45. Milder day after a frozen night, but a chill wind at times. The usual problems finding my way round Holyoke, but eventually arrived at the reservoir site of the run: lots of cars parking at the bottom of the hill going in, so I did similar. Jogged up to the Elks place--major crowds, but picked up my number and the nice jacket they had for early entrants, then jogged back to the car. Changed and with shorts, hat and gloves, decided to stay with two layers on top. Jogged back to the start area, and all 1,000 or so runners were mobbing up. No sign of anyone from SRRC, though lots of familiar faces. Near the start, spotted Nick from the club, so one other Swiftie at least. Feeling quite good, and so took off orange top leaving one layer only. False start (cannon fired prematurely!) before the anthem, so all had to back up -- still, we were off in pretty good time, just after 1 p.m. First mile, tried not to go too fast; still, it was about 6:10, so not slow. Figured I could handle 6:15-20 or so, and pushed on, keeping Abby W in sight as I know she's just a bit faster than me. All went very well until middle of mile four, when I felt numb-leg coming on -- really early, I thought, only 3.55 miles on the clock. Gah. It got worse, and by 4 miles I knew I had to stop before I fell over. Of course this meant lost places, but I stretched and shook the leg back into some sort of feeling and plugged on. I stopped thre times in all, at approx. 4.5, 5, and about 5.4, then I managed to push on to the end. Of course mile 5 was very slow, 7:47, and I actually fell down once (at the second stop, I think) but I ended up with a surprisingly good pace overall, placing 78th:

Time: 39:06
Distance: 6 miles
Pace/Speed: 6:31/9.2 mph

Comment: as with the Monson, this one left me with very mixed feelings. Very psyched to make the sort of pace I was making, but super-bummed to get numb-leg in a race. Argg. As it was, this would have been on par with my PB for a 10K, so I'm happy there. If I'd done even a reasonable race-mile at mile 5, say a 6:47 instead of a 7:47, this would have been a *super* time. So, that's my target for the snowstorms -- get close to this again.

Re the numb-leg, it looks as though I can avoid it by keeping my mileage high. One low mileage week is not too bad, but two or more really seems to make me susceptible (maybe constant running keeps the swelling down?). Meh. Keep working.