Eric (facelessghost) and I decided to do the Utah Running Club 15K this Saturday because it was a good distance, it was where we needed to be that day (Provo), and it was cheap. In retrospect, we might have enjoyed a bigger race more (e.g., the 5K that was at Liberty Park), but now we know for next time. We started about 20 seconds late because the race timer said "Go" right after Eric started retying his shoe. He got pretty far ahead of everyone right away, but I was surprised that I passed almost everyone (even the two girls I thought would beat me because they looked so lean) within about a minute. After a few miles I knew I probably wouldn't make my "dream" goal of an under-8:30 pace, but I was able to make my "realistic" goal of beating my 15K time from January. January's course was flatter, too, so I feel like I've improved (though yesterday's course was mentally easier because it was more interesting). When Eric passed me on the way back he said there were two men and one woman in front of me, but it turned out that the woman was the race director who hadn't run the whole course, so he and I ended up being the first man and woman back. Like he said in his race report, though, there might have only been a couple or a few other people running the 15K. And I think a lot of people might have been treating it like a training run. But even though it was small and super informal, I'm glad we did it because I probably tried harder than I would have if I were just out by myself. Oh - it was my first run with my new Garmin 205. I liked the average pace function, but I was super annoyed that it did the autostop when I was *not* stopped (I'll be turning that feature off, but was it the clouds? The trees?). And Eric's and my elevations don't match (even though the maps of our runs are identical). Is it defective? Less accurate than Eric's because it's the 205 and not the 305? Was it because of the autostop (but why would that make such a difference in the elevation)? Was it because I had it set to record at every second, and his was on smart record? Lame.
| 