Posts Tagged ‘5 miler’

My wife caught this awesome photo of the James River in Lynchburg from the first bridge we cross in the race.

You know those moments where you plan something and it plays out perfectly? Well, that didn’t happen today. For one of the first races ever, I set a very specific goal for today’s Percival’s Island 5 Miler in Lynchburg. I even went as far as writing on my wrist where I needed to be each mile to hit 36:54.

7:22 pace would have put me at 36:54 (yes, that's a 4, not a 9)

My time today was 36:47. That’s right, 7 seconds faster than my goal. It was also 12 seconds better than my PR in this race from 4 years ago, and it was nearly 3 minutes faster than last year.

The best laid plans of running a consistent, even-paced race — hitting about 7:22 each mile — just didn’t happen. Not that it’s a problem, but it turned this into a race in which I dug deep both physically and mentally in the second half to make up time after losing precious seconds in the first couple of miles.

I got caught up in a little more traffic than I usually do in the first mile and hit it in 7:28. I hit mile 2 in 7:25. That put me about 10 seconds off where I wanted to be.

When I hit the halfway point and the clock read 19 something, I had a decision to make — lay off the gas pedal a bit and still have a solid race, but accept missing my goal, or … well … let’s just say I wasn’t going to play the mental game today. I picked my ass up and went for it.

Through mile 3 and 4 I was able to get my pace down a bit, but I still had some work to do. When I hit mile 4, the clock was right at 29:59 — I still had to do a 7-minute mile just to tie my time from 4 years ago. It was shut up and go time.

At that same moment, I passed a couple of people who had just passed me; then a quarter mile later a guy passed me; I stuck with him and we passed a guy on a bridge who told us we were looking strong; the guy we passed on the bridge passed me with a tenth of a mile to go and said “Come on”; I passed that guy 3 feet from the finish line; the other guy was just in front of me.

This is near the finish line; I'm in blue. Somehow I dug deep and passed that guy at the end.

Instead of thinking about what I was doing, it was some very friendly competition in the last half mile that led to a sub-7 minute mile and a PR.

In the end, I learned a lot today:

• For these community races I need to get closer to the front — I was 42nd out of 225 people. There’s no reason for me anymore not to start a little closer to the front than I do.
• Writing the splits on my wrist is a huge help in keeping focused. I don’t know how many races I’ve done in which I tried to do math in my head to hit certain times, but I felt more at ease mentally today. I will definitely have more specific goals for future races.
• Keeping my arms lower continues to help keep me relaxed when pushing it. I heard someone at the end telling runners to “work your arms; finish strong.” While I probably did use my arms at the end to push myself, that technique is not for me for a flat race anymore. For hills, yeah, you need to use your arms, but I had a lot of energy left at the end because I didn’t waste any with big arm movement the first 4 miles.
• When the weather cooperates, push it harder. Today’s temperature at the start was in the mid-60s, about 20 degrees cooler than at the same time for much of the first half of the week. We had highs in the mid-90s to near 100 until Thursday, and those temperatures are coming back, so I felt like I had a small window today to push things even harder than I usually would.
• Compression calf sleeves are great for recovering. I’ll write a full review later, but my legs do not feel like they ran a hard 5 miles this morning.

Today’s race also caps off the first quarter of marathon training. I couldn’t have asked for a better start with some strong runs, steady long runs and two race PRs.

This weekend I’m running in the Percival’s Island 5 Miler in Lynchburg for the fourth time since 2006. This year the weather looks great with the forecast to be in the low 60s the night before with relatively low humidity.

Last year turned into a big humid mess; the weather the first half of this week has been the worst of the year with heat indexes in the low 100s.

Why all this weather talk? Well, like last week’s 5k PR, a change in the weather is all I need to change my mind frame. I’m also realizing that each time I run in the heat that battling the elements is just as much a mental fight as it is physical. I’m ready to move forward with setting a very specific goal for this race.

Based on recent runs on hills, the way I felt on this course last year, and some technological help, I’m setting a goal of 36:54. That’s 5 seconds faster — 1 second per mile — than what I did four years ago. I think it’s a realistic goal to set my mind to so I don’t just go out and “see what happens.” I’ve done that enough over the years, but I think it’s time that I have a very specific goal for a race like this.

Image: Chaiwat / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

For the first time in four years, I’ve done four races in the first half of the year. There’s something about the variety of races I’ve done this year that have me really wanting to do more as I train for the Baltimore Marathon. And more is what I’ll do.

• The check is in the mail for a 5k near my in-law’s house in Ohio on July 4 — the Stars and Stripes 5k in Howland, Ohio. This will be the flattest 5k I’ve ever done. Considering that I’m coming off a 23:03 5k on a very hilly course this past weekend, there’s no doubt that I’m going to aim for a PR. I pretty much have no time to prepare for that increased speed, so here’s to hoping the hills I run on make all the difference. If I don’t get it, I’ll be OK. I just want to put it out there that I want to break my 5k PR — this is my last shot until December.
• On July 16 I’ll run the Percival’s Island 5-Miler in Lynchburg for the fourth time. Last year I did what I called the smartest racing I’ve ever done. In hindsight, I don’t really remember much about that race, but I’ll be shooting for a faster time than last year (39:52). In 2007 I ran this race in 36:59, which is still my fastest-pace race ever. I don’t know if I have that in me right now, and I’m sure that weather will be a factor once again, so I won’t set any goals just yet.
• Nearly a month later, on Aug. 13, I’ll run the Lynchburg Half Marathon for the fourth time, but only the second time on the “new” course with a nasty hill in the middle. Last year, this was a bad race, but a good training run. Looking back, that hill defeated me. I’m not going to let that happen again. Whether or not I beat last year’s time of 1:55 is something I’m not thinking about right now. Ideally, yes, I want to be faster. How much faster is a goal that will wait after several long runs.
• After that there are some other things I’m considering before the marathon, but I’m not signing up for anything else right now. The 5 miler and the half marathon were very cheap right now and come with moisture-wicking shirts; with a price increase coming July 1, I went ahead and signed up for those this week. Signing up also gives me even more intense focus on training and putting thoughts in my head now of what I want to do in Baltimore in October.

One of the biggest lessons I have learned in six years of racing is that not every event will be the best ever. Today, I took that lesson to heart as some pretty crazy humidity was on hand for the Percival’s Island 5 Miler in Lynchburg.

I had a nice warm-up and was feeling pretty good as the race got under way, but a mile into it, I knew that pushing myself to set a PR wasn’t smart. After hitting the first mile in 7:22, I settled into a pretty good pace for the rest of the race, finishing in 39:32 (8th in my age group among 17; 63rd overall among 200 runners).

Instead of taking the chance to injure myself or beat myself for running hard and not getting a personal best, I turned this into a nice tempo training run. My lack of speed work was evident today on top of the humidity, but that certainly didn’t stop me from enjoying myself, the shaded trails, the views of the James River, running with a large group of people and getting in a solid, solid run.

While it wasn’t anywhere close to my PR of 36:59, this race was quite possibly the smartest race I have ever done. And that’s really all I have to say about this experience.

***

The winner of the POM Wonderful competition for guessing my race time is Danny, who guessed a time of 38:40. Danny’s blog is one of the first ones I started reading a few years ago. You can head over to his blog to follow his training for the New York City Marathon. Thanks to everyone who guessed some times that I was certainly hoping for!

“You have to wonder at times what you’re doing out there. Over the years, I’ve given myself a thousand reasons to keep running, but it always comes back to where it started. It comes down to self-satisfaction and a sense of achievement.” - Steve Prefontaine

While running is often about self-satisfaction, it’s always fun to get others involved in the activity. For the second time ever, I did a guess-my-time contest for tomorrow’s Percival’s Island 5 Miler in Lynchburg, and I’m thrilled to have had so many guesses. I also want to thank POM for getting involved in this to and posting a link on Twitter to yesterday’s post. It’s exciting to have so many people helping push me to do the best I can possibly do.

You can view all the guesses in the Comments section. Thanks to everyone for dropping by! Good luck.

When I launched this site back in April, I promised to have some contests and giveaways, but unfortunately I haven’t done too much of that beyond giving away an awesome book (Thanks Steve!) and a failed attempt at giving away an event T-shirt (Half of Jess and another Steve let me keep it, and I actually have worn it quite a bit).

So fast forward to now … I’m ready to do contest No. 3 — a free case of POM Wonderful juice. Talk about some good stuff — in addition to drinking it, it’s good for cooking too. Even my 20-month-old son enjoys it.

So, how do you win it? Predict my time in Saturday’s Percival’s Island 5 Miler, being held along a flat paved trail in my almost-hometown of Lynchburg, Va. It’s really that simple — the person closest to my time to the nearest second over or under wins. If there happens to be a tie, the person under my time wins (kind of like “Price is Right”). If two people happen to predict the same time, I’ll use Random.org to determine the winner.

To help you out, I’ll give you some background to help predict the time. This is one of my favorite community races that I’ve done. The only problem is I haven’t done this race in three years. Back in 2007, I finished in 36:59, a huge improvement from 2006, when I had a time of 41:07. 2007, just like this year, was full of PRs. I’m not really shooting for a PR though — I’m really just continuing this test of how fast I can go in races and, right now, use them as speed work for marathon training.

The PRs I have set this year have come in the half marathon in March (1:42:52), the 5k in April (21:41) and the mile early this month (6:15). I’ll save you some homework: plug all those numbers into race predicting calculators and the times range from about 36 minutes to just under 38 minutes for a 5 miler. Would I like to set a PR? Definitely. I’ll see how I feel a couple of miles into it whether or not it’s realistic. One huge factor will be the weather. Saturday looks to be muggy, but not all that bad temperature wise. Also keep in mind that I have to run hills all the time, and this race is very flat.

To enter this contest, simply leave a comment below by 9 p.m. (ET) Friday. If you do not want the case of POM, please do not enter. Predictions given over Facebook or Twitter will not be accepted. Please leave a valid email address so I can contact you if you’re the winner.

Good luck!

* For future miscellaneous posts, I’m just going to put the number post it is. No real reason; it’s just a change I wanted to make.

* I ran 10 miles tonight, which isn’t all that significant, but it is the first solo double digit run since last summer. All my 10-mile or more runs this year have been with my friend Travis. It was odd, but I pushed myself through the hills and the heat and got it done.

* I will do a guess-my-time contest for my 5-mile race this Saturday. I’ll have details about that on Friday.

* The next #runchat on Twitter is at 8 p.m (ET) tomorrow (Thursday) with Scott from iRunnerBlog.com. The topic: injuries. The format will be slightly different. We’ll give everyone a few minutes to introduce themselves and then post the first question a few minutes after 8. We will be asking questions for about 45 minutes or so. And then for the last 5 minutes or so, we’ll open up the questioning for everyone to ask questions and seek advice. We hope that everyone participating gets something out of it. Injuries are part of running and we can all learn from others.

Every runner has a different thought on how to measure success. Whether it’s having the longest run ever or setting a PR or doing a workout you’ve never done before or losing weight, there are endless ways to measure success in running. That could be why I’ve come to let running be the biggest part about who I am.

Yesterday I ran the Percival’s Island 5 Miler in downtown Lynchburg (and Amherst County). It’s a very flat course, out and back. As usual, I went in with the goal to beat my time of last year, which was 41:07. I figured that would be easy enough since I’ve gotten my overall race pace under 8 minutes a mile for a while now. Realistically, I wanted to finish in about 38 minutes. To my own surprise, my time was 36:59. So not only was this a PR for this distance, my race pace was a PR as well. With it being a flat course and wonderful weather for late July, the conditions were perfect for all this to happen. I felt comfortable and in control out there yesterday, and still had very little soreness in my legs today. After the race, my workout continued as I had to help my dad in pulling carpet out of my late grandmother’s house.

So I have to say that for me yesterday was a success. The next “race” will be a half marathon in four weeks that I will be treating as a long run for the week. It’ll be a good chance to have a long run with a lot of people around.