The Long Run

PHSC 5K

14th place overall, 1st Age Group

Really enjoy this race and look forward to it each year.  Good weather, had a nice warm up, but did not sleep well last night.  Slept good until about 2:20 am and then barely got back to sleep when the alarm clock went off.

Lined up one or two rows back after the fast cross country guys and then the cross country women.  I was able to get on a pretty good pace past the startup melee, and got in front of all of the fast women that were going out at an easy pace and would pick it up later.  First mile came in at 6:49 and I was ahead of the course marker.  It's a two loop course.

Coming past the start line I was by myself.  the fast guys were far enough ahead I couldn't see them, the women were behind me but not sure by how much.  As I got close to the out and back hairpin, athletic director Steve called out to me "You've got a bunch of girls right behind you".

Just after I turned around at the hair pin, four of the women went past me.  This actually helped a bit as I was fading.  My pace had dropped and I was much slower than 7:00, but gradually got it back down to right at 7:01.  Slowly picked up some more steam but was not able to close the gap to catch up to one of the women.

When I saw the time clock, it was like 20:42, I had a chance to make it.  The clock was counting down in slow motion but faster than I wanted to and the last time I saw on the clock said 20:58.  Thought I'd made it.  Looked at my watch which said 21:00 exactly.  There was no start mat so chip time was actually gun time, and the official time was exactly 21:00

The person ahead of me finished at 20:59.  I later saw pictures from the finish line and I could see me stopping my watch just as my feet were on the wrong side of the finish mat.  Should not have looked at the clock!

Oh well, fitness wise I think I'm there but execution cost me a second or maybe two.  Also, when I was not hitting the splits for the first two miles for what I thought I needed for sub-21:00 I kind of gave up a little bit.

Of the four women that passed me, one of them ran 20:30, which proves there was still enough race left to make up some more time.

Tom ran and came in first place overall with 16:17.  I was not the fastest "old guy", RJ at 44 years old was third overall with a time of 16:48.   Jenny was also there and won overall masters female.

After the race did another mile and a half cool down before running 5 more miles with Evan and then 5 more by myself to finish off the morning with 16 miles.

Next 5k will be the Turkey Trot, lots of runners to chase and fewer turns so usually a faster course for me.

6.23@10:22   HR 129 bpm

Out and back run from Trinity Blvd trailhead on Starey Gap down to Keystone.

AM 4.29 @ 10:19  HR 126 bpm

Big square around the outside of Westlake Village, 4/1 run/walk, going to run some more tonight.

PM 3.04@10:17   HR 128 bpm

Humpday Hustle run with Daisy at Longleaf area.  I was late getting there, darkness seems to have made the traffic much worse.  Wore a headlamp as parts of route are not well lit.

7.59@7:47  HR 157 bpm

Had not picked which workout to do so when the Garmin gave me a suggested workout of 5 x 8minutes @7:40, thought that sounded good.  10 minute warmup and the comfortablly was running about a 7:30ish pace which turned into 7:28.

Three minute jog, then next 8 minutes at 7:17 pace, then another one at 7:10, and finally 4th one at 7:01, did not feel at all close to all out and felt around what I had envisaged 7:30-7:40 would feel like.

While running these intervals I had gotten in my head that there were 4 of them, so after the 4th one and the easy 3 minutes, was caught off guard about the 5th one, so decided to at least do half of it (was on a time schedule, had to get into work for a meeting.

Ended up doing just over 5 minutes of the last one which was 0.74@6:50 pace.

So, despite the mess up was pretty happy with the workout, maybe some shorter intervals next week to practice leg turnover at goal 5k (medium term goal that is - I think I can keep working toward sub-20:00, even though I still have yet to break 21:00  - last one of those was 2019 when I was closer than I thought to breaking 20:00 before sliding backward).

5.21@9:52  HR 130 bpm

A couple of easy loops inside Westlake Village.  Heading out of town later tonight to watch Tom's race tomorrow.

15.15@9:16   HR 141   

Huntsville, AL - ran about 10.5 miles with Jenny then added on some miles with a loop around the office park road near the hotel.  Was chilly at the start , still cool at the end.  Jenny had mapped out a route so just had to follow along.  Ran part of the helix (originally thought this was like a helix shape going up but it's actually modeled like a DNA helix criss crossing).  Ran up and down a trail on the local greenway.  6:00 am meet up time so we'd be done while breakfast still served.  Race not until 2:30 in the afternoon so had time for a nap after breakfast.

Watched the race held at John Hunt cross country park.  Very spectator friendly.  I thought Tom did great but was not the time he was hoping for but also not his worst time.  He's running again on Tuesday for NJCAA Half Marathon nationals, but unfortunately won't be out here for it.

Flight back was direct from Huntsville which was nice since I flew in to Atlanta and drove so I wouldn't worry about missing a connection (wasn't a terrible drive but the direct flight back definitely nicer).