I know, I know, if I'm going to pay for the domain name and server space, I should write more often, right? Anyway, those that read my status updates on Facebook - where I'm far more active than my personal blog - know that I wimped out on Doggy Dash two weeks ago because, well, the California Rainy Season went long this year (Sacramento has gotten over 25" compared to the usual 19" or so, the Sierras are packed with snow and the reservoirs are full - all good things after several years of drought), and I just thought that running with a few thousand dogs on wet pavement was not a good situation to remain injury-free. Last two times I've run that race - and I enjoy doing it, don't get me wrong - I've about been knocked down by someone's Rover running between my legs, attached - if that is the term - to one of those damn retractable leashes. Since I'm finally running decent after 2 1/2 years of being effed with by an IT band injury (look it up, I'm not going to explain it, except to say that it hurts - a lot), then struggling with plantar fasciitis earlier this year, I figured why take a chance?
This is a new race that I signed up for that benefits local police chaplains - the folks who console people who've had really screwed up things that are not their fault happen to them, and the course looked fun... you run from Miller Park, which is on the Sacramento River, towards downtown, running city streets beside I-5, briefly in the pedestrian tunnel on the K Street Mall, turning around at the plaza clock, and then heading back pretty much on the same route, with a short section in Old Sacramento and part of the riverwalk (which is also part of the Urban Cow half marathon course). I'm not trying to do any really intensive short racing right now other than to use these 5Ks as an indicator of my overall run fitness and to see whether I actually AM improving as I build back the base, endurance and speed that a 2 1/2 year layoff sucked away.
My legs were pretty rested... I haven't done a 10 miler the past two weeks, resting my right ankle a bit, which has developed an annoying soreness on the interior side, figuring that if my body is screaming "I hurt" a little to pay attention to it before it blossomed into something I don't really want, but while I was in Cabo this past week (details to come in another post), I did do three dreadmill runs and had 11 miles in for the week before this morning's run.
Not a staggering total - I've been flirting with 20-22 mile weeks lately but I'll be around 17-18 for these past two weeks, and that's OK, every training cycle needs down/rebuild/recovery time, and marathon training doesn't start until August. My main objective between now and August 27th - when I run the Giant Half Marathon race in San Francisco - is to stay injury-free, have fun, and continue to build my fitness without burning out or otherwise doing stupid things to tear my body up.
There was really no prep for the race. I knew I'd be tired because of the flight back from SJD late Thursday, and I didn't go to bed that early last night. I was even a bit lazy in that I didn't bother - as I usually do - to shave or shower before this race. I said "hell, you're going to get sweaty and stinky anyway", slapped a Dry-Fit visor over my bed head and bug reflectors on my face. I'm not a hairy guy anyway, will never be able to grow a decent beard, so usually I can to 2-3 days without shaving before people notice that, well, I've stopped shaving my face :-p
I did slurp a Gu before I hopped in the car - its about a 15 minute drive in the early morning from my place to Miller Park. Parking was not an issue, this was a very well-organized race. Just sort of hung out, as I usually do, and chatted with a guy that was wearing his work uniform - he's a plumber - that was running for "my law enforcement friends". Turns out the dude is originally from NYC, and now, at 38, weighs 190 - down from 340! a few years ago, and he's run a 3:18 marathon. He was wearing his work boots and figured he'd just "jog a 10:00 mile". Pretty amazing, and I saw him finish right around the time that jogging a 10 minute mile would yield (just looked up the results - yep, he ran about 30:00). Anyway, I applauded him for doing such a good job losing weight and getting in shape without having to go on the Biggest Loser and have a whole bunch of fakey drama doing...
As I noted, I was a bit tired and not back into the rhythm of being home, so I thought I'd see how the first mile felt and run from there... and to my surprise, I clocked 8:36 in the first mile, but then deliberately throttled back as I didn't want to have a big collapse in the final 2.11 miles. In retrospect, that may have been a mistake to slow down to 9:15 pace, as I think I actually got more tired going slower than I normally would have if I'd kept up a faster pace.
But don't think I'm not pleased, because, well - while I'm nowhere near my 2007 run shape, I knocked a minute or so off of my previous 5K times and I didn't feel horrible or really too stressed to maintain a decent race pace the last two miles. I pushed once I saw the finish in the last .10 (ran 7:44 for that part) and had the wonderful fun of doing a small puke in the finish chute (I did avoid hurling on any of the volunteers or other racers though).
I'm still light years from being able to churn out a 9:00 pace for a half marathon distance (or any other race over 5 miles) like I was able to do in 2007... but - I can see that if I continue to progress that I can start turning in run performances that I can really smile about again. Not that I'm not having fun out there now ... I've run raced enough that I've got sufficient race experience to know that a lot of this is mental as well as putting in the physical training.
And while my time wasn't spectacular, I moved up to near the midpoint of my age group (and I've never been real high in that) and I moved into the upper half of the 5K finishers... and this, overall, was a fast race and course - even the walkers in the back turned in decent times.
Finally, unlike a lot of the other 5K courses here in Sacramento, this one really was 3.11 miles - usually they're marked at 3.15. Just a little quibble that I have...
I'm going to go ahead and sign up for the Urban Cow Half Marathon as my A training race for CIM, too. I think Four Bridges, which is Halloween weekend, is too close to CIM to race hard (at least for me - CIM is only 4 weeks later), whereas Urban Cow, being the first Sunday in October, is perfectly positioned to race hard and let you adjust your running schedule for the remaining 8 weeks to optimize your marathon preparation. Depending on how The Giant Race goes, though, I may register for Four Bridges as it is hilly and treat it as a training run rather than run it for time...
Official Finish Time 28:09 (Garmin 28:01)
Overall 175/491
Age Group (Male 40-49) 28/52
As I noted, I was a bit tired and not back into the rhythm of being home, so I thought I'd see how the first mile felt and run from there... and to my surprise, I clocked 8:36 in the first mile, but then deliberately throttled back as I didn't want to have a big collapse in the final 2.11 miles. In retrospect, that may have been a mistake to slow down to 9:15 pace, as I think I actually got more tired going slower than I normally would have if I'd kept up a faster pace.
But don't think I'm not pleased, because, well - while I'm nowhere near my 2007 run shape, I knocked a minute or so off of my previous 5K times and I didn't feel horrible or really too stressed to maintain a decent race pace the last two miles. I pushed once I saw the finish in the last .10 (ran 7:44 for that part) and had the wonderful fun of doing a small puke in the finish chute (I did avoid hurling on any of the volunteers or other racers though).
I'm still light years from being able to churn out a 9:00 pace for a half marathon distance (or any other race over 5 miles) like I was able to do in 2007... but - I can see that if I continue to progress that I can start turning in run performances that I can really smile about again. Not that I'm not having fun out there now ... I've run raced enough that I've got sufficient race experience to know that a lot of this is mental as well as putting in the physical training.
And while my time wasn't spectacular, I moved up to near the midpoint of my age group (and I've never been real high in that) and I moved into the upper half of the 5K finishers... and this, overall, was a fast race and course - even the walkers in the back turned in decent times.
Finally, unlike a lot of the other 5K courses here in Sacramento, this one really was 3.11 miles - usually they're marked at 3.15. Just a little quibble that I have...
I'm going to go ahead and sign up for the Urban Cow Half Marathon as my A training race for CIM, too. I think Four Bridges, which is Halloween weekend, is too close to CIM to race hard (at least for me - CIM is only 4 weeks later), whereas Urban Cow, being the first Sunday in October, is perfectly positioned to race hard and let you adjust your running schedule for the remaining 8 weeks to optimize your marathon preparation. Depending on how The Giant Race goes, though, I may register for Four Bridges as it is hilly and treat it as a training run rather than run it for time...
Official Finish Time 28:09 (Garmin 28:01)
Overall 175/491
Age Group (Male 40-49) 28/52
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