So heather and I planned on a 5k date so we chose to run the
PR Run Your Heart Out 5k. We were going to bring the boys but the cold 5k's are not exactly fun for them and they are doing alot of other sports at the moment. However, heather and I are always up for a 5k. Heather was coming off a ~50 mile week and I had just started back with a 30 mile week...On Friday I ran almost a half marathon in the swamp lands of
Manassas Battlefield...so the legs were tired and neither of us do any thing that resembles speed work given my goals are focused more on 50k's and beyond. That said, bring on the 5k.... So we get there early as usual, pick up the bibs and tshirt (hate the color and its a t-shirt)...meanwhile, the temp was 25F...around 8:10, we head out on the track and hit about 2 miles...I think heather actually ran 3...I stopped to stretch out a little. So 9am arrives and pull out the MAN card and go with a single T-shirt...don't know if that was manly or just plain stupid but hey, it made me feel tougher than the next person - whatever that counts for and in running, it means zero! So we are off around the track and onto the bike path out to the South lakes woods behind the high school...my first mile was in the 6:45 range (SHITTY)...then we start twisting and turning and twisting and going up hills and down hills and up hills, boom 7:15 for mile 2...I am thinking, damn JD, you really suck..So at the begging of mile 2, this 11 year old, yes 11 (sick, I know) , had been running beside me all race...we go around a turn and bam, he hits a patch of ice, then the ground hard...It was right in front of me and I was going to blow past him since we were picking up speed at the time...so what did I do, I stopped and helped him up...I wanted to make sure he was ok (as I have two youngs boys myself) and didn't break anything...so as people are blowing by use, we start jogging again and he is crying a little bit as I think he got the wind knocked out of himself...hell, I would be crying too if I was running that pace and hit the ground that hard...his breathing was crazy fast and he was trying to run and so I slowed down and told him to get his breathing under control and to try to calm down (easier said than done) as a fall usually F's up your whole breathing at the time...he pulled it together and got his breathing and pace back under control to finish the race with a good time (tough kid)...My last mile was a 6:56 (not good either) but I figured helping the boy out was more important and the time really didn't matter. On a side note, I was coming up the hill at the end and the boys father who must of killed it and got some sick time, something prob in the 16's, comes running back and sees him and yells "YOU GOT TO GO NOOOOOOOOOOW"......I even got a little pep in my step after that booming yell....I don't think he knew his son bit it about mid way through...
I ended up getting a
20:58 for fourth place in the 40-44 age group and you guessed it, third place was 20:50...oh well, such is life..I got 33rd/288 in the men division...Ideally, I would like to be sub 20 but that wasn't happening today regardless of how things went...If I am going to improve my 5k times, I actually need to do more (ANY) speed work and more hill work...I have done neither, just miles in the woods...I would stopped and helped him again but what did piss me off was that no one else even batted an eye and flew right past us when he hit face first on the pavement..guess having kids myself sheds a different light on how you see things...oh well, anyway, had a good time and as always #PRRunning puts on a great event. Heather had a great race two and got 26:04...However, I am really looking forward to the
Terrapin Mountain 50k at the end of March...ultras are the fun races for me...If I stay healthy (or less injured), I am running the
Pittsburgh marathon in May and then the
Cayuga 50 miler on June 1. Below is a quick shot of me coming up the last hill before we turned into the track:
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| Heart rate is around 500 and I am thinking I can run really slow in ultras, why are you doing this again :) |
