I spoke with my cousin this weekend. He's also a "BAR" (Born Again Runner). Except there are some differences between the two of us. For example, he's a natural athlete and I'm not. He ran sub 16 5Ks in High School, I ran sub 18s (Once in a Blue Moon). You get the gist...
Anyway - my point is that we reconnected on running, and I found out that he's already registered for the inaugural Syracuse Half coming up this month. I had been contemplating doing it, but this just seems to be the last piece of motivation I needed. It's not that I have any worries about doing halfs at this point, but more so the logistical part (kids and all - you know). I digress again.
Like I was saying, my point is that I have been excited, because I've been keeping tabs on his races through the good 'ole InterWebz - and I thought that we were pretty close to the same level of running at this point. Anyhow - I found out that he's not really running any of his races at race efforts. Oh well... I guess that I'll have to concede to being that sub 18 guy all over again and letting him be the sub 16 guy (expect add 3 or 4 minutes on there for both of us for good measure).
He told me that he's really seen a vast improvement due to track work - so even though I said I was going to lay off pushing the pace for a month - I cheated today. I attribute this to my cousin - thanks dude!
I ran a short progression run today. I've been very careful about my mileage - so I wanted to make sure that I ran less mileage this past week versus the week before (I'm kind of leapfrogging mileage increases - in order to give my body some more opportunity for recovery after mileage increases). So that limited me to about 4 miles for today. The week before I ran just about 27.3 - that's most weekly mileage I've run since the last phases of my training for the Philly Marathon back in October of 2011. This week I ran 25.7.
Anyway - I decided to make my 4 miles into a progression run - I figured it would give me a nice mix of everything. Turns out that it was fun too!
Mile 1: 9:56
Mile 2: 9:11
Mile 3: 8:36
Mile 4: 7:34
Overall Pace: 8:48/mi
Race Recap:
I need to give a quick race recap for the R. Falls Playground run. Not because I had a great race or anything, but because it was SO WEIRD! I was running with the SS, so I didn't go into the event with the mindset of running hard (unless for some magical reason I felt great as the race unwound - which did not happen). I have also been battling yet another cold (gotta love having kids), so I knew that I'd probably struggle somewhat. I marched right to the back at the starting line. We were off...
Racing:
I passed a group of people within the first quarter mile, but after that - there wasn't too much action. I felt like I ran at a threshold or tempo pace for most of the race, which is okay by me for this one. Sometimes I don't know how hard I'm running, or not running, until I get towards the end and start to pick up the pace. It's often only at that point that I know if have been going to slowly, because I am able to kick too hard. This race was one of those instances...
The Weirdness:
I knew a few of the people that started in front of me, and I watched them gradually pull away from me throughout the race. There are a few quick successive turns at the very end, so I didn't notice them in the final stretches, but after I crossed the finish line, I looked around for them and they were no where to be found. I figured that they went inside - and then... And then they all came across the finish line! What? Apparently they all ran past the last turn. So I felt weird writing my time down (yes this is a small enough event that you write your own time down afterwards), because I knew that they really had beaten me, but my time would indicate otherwise.
More Weirdness:
The timer read off 21:29 (or something close to it, as I crossed the finish line). I didn't realize it until later, but my Garmin read 22:34. What the...? Weird, especially since I always start my Garmin as I cross the start, not when the gun goes off. Turns out that others reported the same phenomenon - Go figure - just a weird outcome all around. I did, however, run a SS PR. Granted, it was shorter than a 5K, but I justified it being a SS PR based upon pace (8:12).
The Fun:
It's a nice low-key event for a good cause. Everyone is friendly.
Feedback:
Make the course 3.1 miles! The roads were snowy, and the bare spots were valuable. Communicate to walkers to kindly move to the side when they hear runners approaching - or start the walkers even earlier!
Anyway - I tried to take pics of the results, but I didn't have my good phone, so they're blurry - Sorry!
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