Hybrid Design 25K: past the half again

This was race three of five in the readiness series, and the first time since the marathon the previous December that either of us had run past the half-marathon distance with a bib on. A 25K works out to about 15.5 miles, which doesn't sound like much more than 13.1 until you're out there doing it.

The gap between a half and a marathon is where a lot of first-timers get lost, and we understood why. Thirteen miles feels like an accomplishment you can be proud of, and twenty-six feels like something other people do. The 25K and the 30K after it are the two races in the series that close that gap, and as far as we can tell they're the reason the series works at all. By November the long run has already been past 15 and past 18 with aid stations and a finish line, and December turns into a step instead of a leap.

This one came a week after the Honolulu Century, so it was a hundred miles on the bike one weekend and 15.5 on foot the next. We ran it accordingly, easy from the start, fueled the whole way, and finished with something left. This is the part of the fall where the plan is in pencil and the sleep budget usually decides whether the week works or doesn't, and that week it mostly did.

For me, that meant 2:11:25 at 8:46 a mile, ninth in the 50-54s. Michelle ran 2:53:44, eleventh in hers. Neither of those was a number we'd have chased on a fresh weekend, and neither was supposed to be.

From here on, every race in the series was a marathon rehearsal: the same breakfast we planned to eat in December, the same shoes, and the same pacing, which was boring for the first third, steady through the middle, and honest at the end. The temptation on a 25K is to race it, because the legs are fit and the distance is new, and you'd probably get a great result and a bad October out of it, and nobody needs a great 25K. The 30K was next, and that's where the rule got its real test.