Sunday, June 21, 2009

Steve - 4

19:56. I have a new PR!

I got there late again as usual. Fortunately I had a little more time before this race, but not much. Ran from my parking spot to the start of the race. Maybe like 3/4 of a mile or so. Got to the registration and put my chip on securely. Announcer said the race is starting in less than 3 minutes. Just enough time for a quick bathroom trip. Made it to the start line just as they were getting ready for the national anthem. This was a smaller race so I made it right near the front. Did some high knees, butt kicks, etc for about 1 minute and 45 seconds. Still had some rather obese runners in front of me at the start of the race, but it could have been much worse. I guess some people really want to start at the front, even if they don't plan to run the whole way.When the gun went off, I had plenty of room to operate. My achilles was hurting a bit throughout the race, but I just tried ignore it and keep the same, steady stride. I wanted to open with a 6:25 or so mile and was right at 6:24. The pace felt very manageable. Exactly to plan so far. For the second mile, I made a concerted effort to move past people because if you're not passing people on the second mile, it usually means you're slowing down. I hit the turnaround at 9:25 or so, but I don't think it was the halfway point because the finish wasn't in the same spot as the start. I passed a few more runners and hit the second mile split in 6:20. Another perfect mile. Now I knew I just needed to maintain this same effort for another mile and I had a sub 20 5k(6:26 per mile pace). So you know already now that I did make it, so there's no suspense.

Well I started fading a bit in the last mile. Maybe I let down mentally a bit. Perhaps cuz I didn't run at all on Friday or Saturday. I haven't taken 2 days off from running for more than a month now. So my legs were fresh, yes, but you don't want them to be too fresh, if you know what I mean. The last mile was a lot of work, but when I glanced at my watch as it flipped to 19:00, I could see the finish line not to far off. I began surging and crossed the line at 20:03! Not to worry my friends. That was my gun time. Chip time was 19:56, as was the time on my watch. Final 1.1 miles in 7:11 (6:31 mile pace). Not too much of a dropoff, but my final 200 was probably lacking. I might have held back a little because of my achilles, but what the hell. I'm psyched to have a big PR. One final disclaimer is I wore trainers and not flats, so that's a few seconds I can easily knock off for my next race...

Non-racing related celebrity update from the festivities- One of my wife's friends who ran the race finished a few seconds ahead of Valerie Bertinelli, who is an actress of some acclaim I guess. I only recognized the name because of the weight loss commercials she is on. You can view her time here if you dare...

6 comments:

  1. Way to go man! Sounds like you ran a really solid race. Guess that means I have a new PR to gun for now....

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  2. Yeh it feels good to finally get under 20. When's your next race?

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  3. What time did the actress I've never heard of get? Your link didn't lead to her, but to the top 25 runners. Which does mean however that you were at the bottom of that table! Good work!!

    Sorry to anyone who has email notifications turned on and is now deleting dozens of emails from me.

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  4. Man everyone my dad's age was like in love with Valerie Bertinelli. She's in the limelight right now for losing a bunch of weight.

    Congrats on your new PR, Steve!

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  5. 28 and change for the Weight Watchers diva. Not too bad..

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