I entered another 5K today, just 6 days after my last one.  It was the SonRise 5K in Plano, TX.  Today’s weather was cold.  It was 40F and on the way back home, it was snowing.  No accumulation though.
I was able to run a new 5K PR or 25:31.  This time around I was able to hold my 8:00 min/mile pace for the first 2 miles.  I had to walk a couple times in the last mile which dropped my pace.

I didn’t place in my age group…I was 4th, but I’m really excited about my new PR which improved on my PR from last Sunday by over 2 mins.

I’m very tempted to enter one last 5K next weekend before I start marathon training.  I’ll make that decision tomorrow.

Posted by derek as Races at 9:41 AM PDT

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After my last 5K this past Sunday, I decided to sign up for another one this Saturday and I’m contemplating doing a 3rd the next weekend. Seeing how close I am to placing in my age group is a driving factor. I think on a good day (and small enough race ), I have a real chance of placing in the top 3.

After thinking about it, I actually like the 5K distance. It’s short enough that I could go out fast and if I screw up, I only have to suffer for less than 30 min. With a 10K, I would have to suffer for twice as long. I think the recovery from a 5K should also be shorter and a taper probably not necessary so it would be less disruptive to my weekly mileage than a longer race.

I’m also trying to fit in extra 5K races before I start my marathon training plan on April 22.

Like my last 5K, my plan is to go out at an 8 min/mile pace and try to hold that for as long as I can. If I can hold it for the entire race, I could break 25 mins which would be great!

On the training side, I’m back to running 7 miles/day. I have found a renewed motiviation to continue losing weight so hopefully I can break through my current plateau and make some progress to my goal of 160 lbs.

Posted by derek as Training, Races at 6:40 AM PDT

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Today I ran the Big D Texas 5K. The 5K was held at Fair Park in Dallas and I almost didn’t make it on time. I left home and timed it so I would arrive at the race about an hour before the start. As luck would have it, the exit I had to take off the main highway was about 0.25 miles after 2 major highways merged and there was a major accident just beyond the exit so the cops were forcing 5 lanes of highway traffic to exit on the same exit I needed to take. Needless to say, it took me about 45 mins to travel the last half mile to get to the race. For a while I thought I wouldn’t make it.

I just made it with 5 mins to spare before the official start time, but luckily the race organizers were aware of the traffic problems and delayed all starts about 15 mins. That gave me sufficient time to get a warm-up in. My legs still felt tired and a bit rubbery. Those 2 40-mile weeks took a lot of out me.

My main goal for the race was to run under 30 mins. My last 5K was 30:11 and my recent 10K a month ago was a bit disappointing as I missed breaking an hour as I ran a 1:00:50.

My second goal was to really try and push hard. I wanted to start running at an 8:00 min/mile pace and take it from there.

The organization of the race was a bit of a mess. To begin with, the start wasn’t marked, and no one knew where the start was. Eventually an official showed up and pointed to a small 2-inch white dot on the ground and indicated the start was behind that dot! We had chips, but the race was not chip timed. It was gun-timed and the chips were only used to record the time at the end. There was no starting mat to run over. I ended up right in the front as that was where I happened to be when the official pointed to the starting dot and was about to start the race.

Being in the front, I started off a bit too fast. I think I must have run the first 0.25 miles at around a 7 min/mile pace. I managed to settle down though and I ended the first mile at a 7:54 min/mile pace. The rest was actually downhill from there. I ended up taking multiple walking breaks.

Despite the walking, I managed to finish in 27:52. I broke 30 mins! My splits were as follows:

Not quite the even or even negative-splits I would have liked to run, but overall, I’m happy with the result. I didn’t end the race with the feeling that I could have done better today. On a perfect day I think I could have done better, but with the stress of the traffic, the rushed warm-up and the tired legs from last week, I’m very happy.

I ended up placing 4th in my age group Based on the time of the 3rd place finisher, if I took one less walking break, I would have placed 3rd. In looking at the results from this 5K and the last one I ran. By later this year, I will be placing in my age group!!!

Posted by derek as Races at 7:29 PM PDT

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My registration for my first marathon is in. Today I signed up for the Chicago Marathon on October 7th. I also booked and paid for the hotel. My family and I will be staying at the Essex Inn which is 0.25 miles from the start and finish.

My original plan was to run the Dallas marathon in December, but as I started getting closer to planning my marathon training, I decided on the Chicago marathon for the following reasons:

• I wanted a flat course. The Dallas marathon is a net zero-elevation course, but it still has some hills. After my experience in a recent 10K with some hills, I would rather run on a flat course for now.

• Chicago is a huge marathon and I figured being at a bigger even with more spectators would help me through my first marathon.

• I’m started to get anxious about actually starting my marathon training plan and now I get to start 2 months earlier.

I’m hoping to be able to run it under 4 hours, but I’ll work out a target time as my training progresses.

This is the first major step on the road to the Boston Marathon!

Posted by derek as Races at 2:45 PM PST

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I did my very first 10K race today. Prior to this, the only other race I have even run was a 5K on Nov 5 last year.

Would you believe that my biggest worry prior to the race was finding somewhere to park and being worried about roads being blocked off in downtown Ft. Worth. This turned out to be a non-issue. While roads were in fact blocked off, it didn’t affect me at all.

I got to the race area about 75 mins before the start of the race. It was dark, windy, wet, and bit chilly, but I managed to stay warm by hanging around the expo tent.

For the last couple days I’ve been thinking about what pace I should try and run the race in. I set a goal of breaking 1 hour so I figured I’d start at around my normal training pace of about 10min/mile and see how I feel, probably going to 9:00-9:30 for miles 2 and 3 and if I feel fine, pick up the pace a bit.

I started off on plan, but I have a very hard time keeping pace. Eventually I saw a woman that seemed to be running about the same pace I was going at and she seemed pretty consistent so I decided to sit just behind her and I stayed there until about mile 4.5. The course was surprisingly hilly. After going down the first hill just around mile 1, the only thing in the back of my mind is that I need to eventually run up a corresponding hill since the finish is about about 2 blocks from where we started. At one point of the course, we were going up and down over and over. This was especially tough for me since I don’t train on any hills at all. All my training miles have been on flat roads.

Around mile 5, I was starting to struggle, but I held on…just barely. It didn’t help that at that same time, we had an uphill hill to run.

Once I got past that hill, I was within 0.25 miles of the finish so I picked up the pace and passed several people. I even pushed and managed to pass another run about 1 foot from the finish. Once I was done, I came extremely close to throwing up. Coincidental as I was walking around and I saw the finish area of the 5K race, I saw one guy actually vomiting.

My eventual chip time was 1:00:50. I didn’t manage to break an hour. My overall pace was 9:49 min/mile which is basically what I run in training. I’m actually very disappointed in myself. My 5K time from 3.5 months ago was 30:11 so my 10K time isn’t actually any kind of improvement, despite the fact that I have so many more miles under my belt since my 5K race, including 30+ mile weeks for the last 6 weeks plus I’m 10lbs lighter!
Some lessons learned and things I need to work on include:

• I need to do some hill training
• I need to find a way to learn proper pacing. With proper pacing and time awareness, I could have certainly run each mile 10 seconds faster and finished within the hour.
• I need to figure out how much I can push myself earlier in the race. I ran the entire race at my training pace. I wasn’t breathing hard and could have probably carried on a conversation, but I’m afraid of running too fast early on in case I can’t finish.
• I need to figure out why I can race faster than I train.

I’ve been running consistently for 6 months now and doubts are starting to creep in to my mind as to whether I can actually be ready for a marathon in Dec!

Posted by derek as Races at 11:26 AM PST

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