One training run on Monday and one virtual race on Sunday. That’s it for the week.
Monthly Archive for February, 2008
I took part in the World Media Run this weekend. Even though I couldn’t be in Florida to run the “actual” race, runners were allowed participate by running a “virtual” race on their own. So basically I ran a solo race through my neighborhood today.
Ran 3.11 miles in 25:52.93 (8:19/mi pace) with an average speed of 7.2 mph and a max of 10.8 mph. My 1-mile splits were 7:31, 8:49, and 8:43, with the last tenth at a 7:25/mi pace. Burned about 460 calories.
The weather was certainly more agreeable than yesterday. It was a sunny 35 degrees out with some light wind. Still, I felt like I worked far harder than I should have to just hit 25:52. Perhaps I took the first mile out too fast? Or perhaps I’m starting to lose some fitness from being a slacker these last two months.
Either way, I’m relatively happy with today’s results… and the race shirt is awesome.
Be sure to check out the race reports from Nate, Eric, and Marcus.
Can I even call this a build-up plan at this point? I’m not sure.
I did a 5K run on Thursday, and then the Saginaw 5K race on Saturday. Hopefully this week I’ll get some decent runs in.
I ran the Saginaw 5K on Saturday, the fifth race of the YRRC Winter Series.
The race was an out-and-back on a relatively small road near the Susquehanna River. I had heard that this race was relatively flat, and that turned out to be fairly accurate. That certainly helped, considering it was a sunny but brisk 27 degrees out.
I’d say there were about 150-200 people there. As usual, the pre-race “fun run” ran a little long, so we started a little after 9 AM.
This race was the first time that I didn’t feel like I came off the starting line too fast. In fact, if anything I felt like the whole pack was moving rather slow compared to most of the races I’ve entered. It could have been due to the extremely short but rather steep incline at the beginning of the race. As soon as people crested the “hill” the pace picked up quite a bit and I settled into a 7:30 - 8:00/mi pace.
According to my Garmin Forerunner, I covered 3.10 miles in 25:51 (8:19/mi pace) with an average speed of 7.2 mph and a max of 9.6 mph. My 1-mile splits were 7:59, 8:31, and 8:36/mi with the last tenth at a 7:09/mi pace. Burned about 460 calories. I’m not sure, but I think my official time was about 25:53.
According to Runner’s World, 52 degrees is the perfect race temperature. As the temperature drops below that, you should expect to add some time. For example, at 25 degrees you can expect to add at 2% to your goal time. Considering I was only about 1:12 slower than my 5K PR (24:41), I’m pretty happy with my results. At the very least it gives me some hope that I can get a new PR this spring.
Not the most notable race I’ve ever run, but definitely one I would do again.
I could provide quite a few excuses, but the fact is that I haven’t been logging as many miles as I had hoped. Only two runs in Week 10, and none in Week 11. That’s the first week without a run that I’ve had in a very long time.
Motivation is definitely an issue this winter.
I did, however, hit the elliptical for an hour tonight. So perhaps I’m getting back on track.