Care4 Breast Cancer 5k

Last year I did this in an asthma ridden, holy-crap-I-am-out-of-shape 39:45. I'm still embarrassed at that but I'd only bee running around 3 months at the time so whatever. I can only admit to that pathetic time because yesterday I dropped roughly 7 minutes off of it with a 32:47. I am hoping to do even better in the future but that was a huge win for me. I felt really good.

The worst part was that I lined up in the section for people who were going to do between 10 and 11 minute miles and there were shitloads of people who were just walking the race in front of me.  Not only that there were often large groups that insisted on walking side by side down the middle of the race.  They should have gone back further in the crowd. I was full of hatred.

So I spent the first half mile negotiating the heavy crowding to get past all those people. Lots of side to side, slow downs and speed ups until I got out into the open where I could establish my pace. That first half mile took a lot out of me and I hadn't counted on it in my plans. Next year I'll start up nearer the front and just stay to the side and let the REAL runners go past me.

Probably I would only have shaved 15 seconds or so off my time, if anything, but it's nice to know that even setting my personal best time I could have done better in a more ideal running situation. It's hard to run a race with 2400 participants, many of whom aren't really running it but showing support for the cause. For that alone I forgive all the walkers.

Four miles the slow way

I've been running my 3.1 miles the last month or so and brought my average pace down to around 10:40 or so per mile. That's got me pretty happy. Today I thought I'd try to run 4 for the first time since my leg injury and started out slow and finished strong. I probably averaged around 11:00 minutes per mile but ended with around 10:30 for my last one. I feel strong still--tired and endorphinated but strong.

I've got a 5K on Sunday--breast cancer run here in Woodstock. I'm really excited because I did it last year and as long as I take care not to over do it during the week in preparation I expect to shave around 6 or 7 minutes off my time last year.

I'm also doing this kind of strange barbell class where we do craploads of reps with low weight and hit all the muscle groups hard. I come out of it pretty beat but I'm already seeing differences in my strength (and appearance! yay!). But I sure do get a lot of funny looks from the guys who use the regular weights. Aside from the teacher and his brother (that he forces to attend) I'm the only guy in the class.