I did the 5k. My PR for the 5k is 25:09, my goal was to break 25:00. I didn't, but I came close: 25:13. You can tell I was trying in the first mile, but the route was funky, getting down to one-runner width at times. They tried to keep us off the street, and in the process took us on some skinny trails.
You can tell how wacky it was from the Google Earth map (click for a larger version).
Mile 1: 7:53.01
Mile 2: 8:32.40
Mile 3: 8:10.64
0.1 Mi: :37.40 (6:34/mi)
Now if only I could have maintained that 6:34 for the whole run, I would have jammed! :)
In the end it all turned out ok. I was 8th in my age group, out of 12, and 17th place overall. Average pace was 8:09/mi. Official time was 25:16, which is pretty darn close to my Garmin's 25:13. Click here for a complete list of times, and here for age group. Interestingly, with me being #8 in 30-39, and #17 overall, 8 of the top 17 finishers were in my age group.
Afterwards, they had Knudsen Recharge as a sports drink. It didn't taste all that great, only had like 50mg of sodium, and 30mg of potassium. I would have preferred a Powerade Zero, but I left that at home.
They did make up for it for food though. They had fresh bagels, peanut butter (I don't do cream cheese), this apricot coffee cake that was DELICIOUS, and all sorts of rice chips. They also had organic rice cakes, which I got for my wife.
The organizers were very friendly and forthcoming with things. I watched them do the timing, which I hadn't seen before. They didn't use chips, they went with a system you runners are already familiar with. One person sat at a laptop clicking the lap button for each runner. People at the finish line were grabbing the tags off the bibs, which they put in the same order as the laps. Then they just input the bib numbers in the order they were stacked, and printed it up. Easy to get wrong, but they had times posted pretty quick.
All in all, it was a good morning. A little chilly at first, but certainly not anywhere near some of those lows in places like Chicago. By the time I was driving home, it was well into the 50s.
Tomorrow's my long run. 10 miles. I'll have to do it in the afternoon, which I really can't complain about. It's going to be a nice day.
1 comment:
Nice job with the 5k. You are right, 1/4 marathon is a weird distance.
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