I usually run three to four days a week as it is, so I am going to try and sprinkle in shorter two to three mile runs on my usual off days. Even though it is June 1, I guess you can say I am now on day two of running consistently. Last week I was running with friend and coworker Ryan, and we bounced around the idea to try and get a weekly group fun run with as many coworkers and friends that we know of. So we both sent Facebook invites to about 20 people to try and make Fridays a weekly group run sort of deal. We did not have the biggest turn out for the first day as a total of four of us made it out. Three to start off initially, and then another friend caught up with us on bike as we ran four miles around the local greenway. I am going to try and keep this up at least for the summer and try to think of themes to spruce it up a bit so we can hopefully have a group two to three times bigger come summer's end.
The official start of #30daysofrunning kicked off in grand fashion with a local 10k in town, The 8th Annual Dewey Du 5k/10k run or 5krun/25kbike/5krun duathlon. Ryan and another friend Adam are big into cycling and were debating on doing the duathlon, but my current bike I have had since 1995 is nowhere near up to snuff to handle a race. So I settled for the 10k run which started off at the fabulous new Choice Health & Fitness Center in town and worked its way down to the local greenway and looped back to Choice.
Mother nature was not on our side again today as it was a brisk 48 degrees at race time. That would not have been too bad in itself, but there was also 20-25mph winds and a decent rain going on as well. Luckily the rain stopped just minutes before race time, and the wind only got to be a factor in a few brief spots of the race. After a few minutes of running I managed to get the body heat flowing and shook off my prerace shivers in no time.
I ran my best pace ever with a 8:11/minute pace according to my RunKeeper app, and my first two miles I managed to just squeeze in under eight minutes, while the rest were under nine minutes! That is over a minute faster than the pace I ran in Fargo! Just goes to show you managing to get some actual sleep in the night before a race works wonders! Just under 300 people registered for the race, but I have no idea how many were for the duathlon, the 5k and 10k as results are yet to be posted, but I want to give a rough estimate of around 150-175 people at the starting line for the 5k/10k race, as the duathlon started a half hour earlier.
After the pack thinned out after first kilometer, I noticed I was near the front of the pack. I was worried about overdoing it again and flaming out early like in my first two races this year, but I managed to maintain a steady pace and kept passing people. I felt a little bad because early on near the front of the pack there were two kids who could not have been more than 10 years old just absolutely killing it, and I was about to pass them and they looked back and stepped it up a bit and kept me behind them for a couple of minutes. A felt a little guilty passing these adorable future track stars.
A short while later a guy in a green shirt passed me, but I passed him about a km later, and not too long after that he caught up with me and we were running side by side for about three kilometers. The pace felt a bit faster than what I am use to but I tried to convince myself I could keep it up for the remainder and finish strong. That was not to be the case however as after about three kilometers of running side by side he managed to shake me off and pull ahead. I never lost him in my sights though and he kept gradually pulling ahead and I think I only finished no more than two minutes behind him.
I did not flame out like I thought I would, and somehow, someway I managed to successfully not look back once during the race to see how close the pack was behind me as I just knew that would ruin my psyche. Early on in the race, going down a little hill I counted a dozen racers in front of me, and guessed there could not be more than 17-18 people ahead of me. Only two other racers passed me for the duration of the race after the pack thinned out, so I am hoping for a top 20 finish. We shall see when the official results go live and I will make sure to post an update to this blog once that happens.
I was hoping to catch up with said dude in green shirt after the race, but my mom and her boyfriend caught up with me after the race to congratulate me and we celebrated with a hard earned breakfast, and many cups of coffee. This was a fantastic way to kick off #30daysofrunning and hopefully I can manage to maintain it the rest of the month. If I manage to pull it off I am telling myself a great way to finish the month off would be to do a full loop around town on its four major roads; something I have always wanted to do!
Update - Results went online and it turned out only 56 people ran the 10k, but I finished 15th overall, way better than I thought when I was hoping I might have just squeezed into the top 20. I had an official time of 50:21, which is over three and a half minutes better than the 10k I ran in February with a time 53:57. Like I said I never looked back so I had no idea how close the next racer was behind me, and it turned out according to the finish times, the next person finished over two minutes behind me. Really proud of my performance out there, and from what I gathered from other runners is that breaking the 10k in under 50 minutes is a big feat in and of itself, and I nearly did it!
No comments:
Post a Comment