Running in Life's Slow Lane

As most of you know, Teresa and I planned our vacation to Vancouver around the Scotiabank Half-Marathon and 5K race slated for today. It was a chance to travel outside the U.S., to a cooler climate, and still enjoy our running hobby. I wanted to run a race outside of the U.S. so I could claim to be an international racer. We also had the definite goals of beating our recent times of 33:00 and running hard.

This was probably not the right race for our goals.

The 5K is a fun run afterthought tacked onto the half-marathon. It is not timed in any way and the course is half trail run and half road race. At times we were trying to pass folks who were not coordinated to duck under a hanging branch and run at the same time. Ugh, we spent a great deal of time trying to pass people as there seemed to be no attempt on those participating to arrange themselves before the gun. It was just mass chaos unleashed into Stanley Park.

And of course, the distance was wrong. I stayed with Teresa and started my kick only 0.25 mi to reach the 3.1 mi finish only to find that the course measured a full 3.34 mi. I imagine some of the extra distance was weaving but the course was too narrow to have ran an extra 0.24 mi!

So, given all of this Teresa and I were happy to finish. Having no official clock to mark our time and having a course that was a bit long, the best I can do is take the 10:10/mi average pace as measured by the Garmin and say we finished 5K in 31:31 which is an improvement of 1:30 over our last race.

0.50 mi warmup
3.34 mi in 33:53 at 10:10/mi burning 408 cal w/ 162 bpm HRavg

Details --
1.00 mi in 10:13 w/ 150 bpm HRavg
1.00 mi in 10:20 w/ 164 bpm HRavg
1.00 mi in 10:13 w/ 168 bpm HRavg
0.34 mi in 03:06 w/ 184 bpm HRavg* (09:14/mi pace)

* Clearly the 220-age = HRmax does not hold because I achieved an HRavg today of 184 bpm which exceeds the theoretical 220 - 43 = 177. 

Well, here it is, another Independence Day. You know what that means! Yep. Time to race!

This year Teresa and I chose to run in the Bethany Freedom Run 8K. It was our first time at an "official" 8K so we had low expectations, aiming for "something close to 1:00:00". As it happened we did quite well considering the weather (82*F, 62% humidity). Teresa went across the mat ahead of me at 58:52 and I was close behind at 58:53.

From my Garmin ...
5.00 mi in 59:08 at 11:50/mi burning 620 cal with 154 bpm HRavg.

Splits ---
1.00 mi in 11:51 134 bpm HRavg
1.00 mi in 11:51 148 bpm HRavg
1.00 mi in 11:59 156 bpm HRavg
1.00 mi in 11:44 164 bpm HRavg
1.00 mi in 11:53 172 bpm HRavg

How about those times? Were we consistent or what? Nice steady climb in my heartrate as well, with the 172 bpm in the last leg influenced by what little kick I managed in the final 0.20 mi.

I hope everyone else enjoys the 4th.

Location: Bethany, OK