Category: Running

Got worked up Friday

Though I have mentioned a few close encounters with vehicles while running, I don’t mention all of them for fear of scaring my mom to death. I have worked out pretty good techniques for letting people know I don’t approve of their stupidity. I never resort to rude gestures nor cursing though. My preferred method is pure violence. I prefer to just put dents in cars when possible.

Friday I was running on the left side of the road (opposite traffic) and had to step around a parked vehicle. There were no cars coming in front of me and no cars to the right. I heard a truck coming from behind me, but it should not have been an issue since he had plenty of room to drive in his lane.

I stepped around the side of the parked truck and was running beside it when the truck from behind came up beside me. But he did not simply drive by. He drove over into my lane pinning me between him and the parked truck. He was so close to me, I am not sure how he kept from hitting me with his mirror.

When these kinds of things have happened in the past I have had room to move away from the vehicle. In this case I was pinned between the two. I had no place to go.

I was so startled and shaken by it, I did not have time to give his truck a good beating.

I was running over to meet my running partner Jeff. It took me some time to regain my composure and continue going though. I know the guy in the truck was just trying to scare me, and he did an excellent job. I almost stopped at that point and went back home. But I continued on to Jeff’s place.

Jeff and I took off for our run, but I was still shaken from the close call. We only ran about 2.5 miles and I called it quits. We happened to be running near my house so we walked on over to my place and he ran home from there.

After that any time a car came up behind me I was careful to look over my shoulder.

Ever go to bed feeling really good?

Last night I started thinking that I was feeling great and could do a good run this morning. There was no race scheduled, but I really felt like I could probably set a 5K PR. My previous PR was 26:09. I was disappointed as to how that race ended and I needed to redeem myself.

This morning I got up still feeling like today could be my day. I did not run yesterday because of an incident on Friday that scared me a bit silly. I will share that later.

I went out for a short warm up run this morning of about 5:00. That is not really long enough, but I felt ready. I stretched a bit and psyched myself up to go.

The goal was to run 5:06 for each Km, which is what my goal a few weeks ago at the race was. This time though I was determined to not fade in the end. This would give me a finishing time of 25:30. Quite a big leap from my previous PR.

5:03
The first Km went without too much incident. I did have to pause briefly for a car to pass. I was thinking that that is one thing you don’t have to deal with in a race since traffic is stopped for you. I was afraid that if I got too many cars at intersections they could put my PR run in jeopardy. Fortunately there is not too much traffic at 8:00 on a Sunday morning.

4:51
While it is good to see you ran a Km 15 seconds faster than your planned pace, it is not good to see it so early on. I was afraid that I would be in trouble at the end. I had one other intersection/car to deal with in this Km.

4:55
Though it was fast, it was nice to be feeling so well while being over half way to my goal. I had not thought about how many seconds I was ahead of schedule. I did not want to use the extra time to allow myself to slow down in the end. But, I also knew that even if I was not feeling well at the end, I had a little extra time in the bank.

4:51
I had decided before the 4th Km mark that if I was under 5 minutes for that Km, then I would take a very short walk break. I had not decided on how long until I saw my time. I allowed myself a 10 second walk break with plans to keep the final Km strong.

4:59
Even with the walk break I did not fall off my pace. In fact, with all the splits under my goal, I felt really good.

24:39
What a great time! I was 1:30 faster than my previous PR and 51 seconds faster than my goal.

As much as I hate to admit it, I know that this faster time is due to running with my friend Jeff. He has not learned how to slow down. He has no sense of pace. When we run together I constantly have to reign him back. But, even at that, we are running about 1:20 faster per mile than I would normally run on my own. He has forced me to run faster–something that I was not doing by myself. I have helped him slow down and he has helped me speed up.

This was a great run and it feels good to get that monkey off my back. I have had a few races where I totally missed my goal. That last race really bothered me to know I faded at the end. Mostly it bothered me because I did not feel like I was fading. I thought I was doing well. I lost my sense of pace that day. But not today!

Today I conquered!

Goals updates

I have been very busy this week and have not really had a lot of time to write. But, even though I have been busy, I have not run across much to write about. Therefore, you get to read about how my goals for 2008 are progressing along.

Running
My goal is to run 1000 miles this year. I have currently run 40 miles. That is a bit ahead of schedule, but not much. I need to run 19.3 miles a week. By Monday of this week (1-14) I need to have completed just 38.6. Being ahead of the goal is never bad. I have been able to run pretty consistently and have not missed a single planned run in the last several weeks. I am in just a maintenance mode right now. I am not training for anything specific. While running with my friend Jeff, we are running much faster than I would normally run alone. This has been good to help me with some tempo type running.

Reading
I am attempting to read 800 pages a month this year. I have not decided yet if I will make this a month to month goal, or a year goal. If it is month to month then I will not carry over any extra pages that I read in one month to pad the following month. If it is a goal to read 9,600 pages (12 X 800 pages) in a year, then I could carry over extra pages.

Currently I have read about 450 pages. That will translate out to over 1,100 pages by the end of the month if I keep up this pace.

Summary
I am excited about both goals for the year. I just hope that excitement stays with me long enough to make it a commitment that I will absolutely stick to. Writing about it here and sharing it with you really helps.

How are your goals going for the year?

Disappointing 5K PR

I ran the 5 Km race that is tied to one of our local marathons today. It is a route I have run a few times in the past. Until late last night, I was not sure if I was going to try for a PR or not.

I had a friend that might have run with me. If he did, then I would have run with him and not worried about my time. Instead, he had to back out and I decided to go for it.

My previous PR (26:10) was run with a pace of 5:14 per kilometer (8:26 per mile). I wanted to hit 5:06 per kilometer today (8:13 per mile). That would have given me a final time of 25:30. My splits were as follows:

  1. 5:16
  2. 4:58
  3. 5:12
  4. 5:07
  5. 5:35*

The first one was slow due to the crowd. It was not a big crowd**, but I started at the back of the pack. I was not entirely sure on the start time. The official paperwork said 6:45, but when I registered yesterday I was told emphatically it would start at 7:00. At 6:45 I was standing in the back of the starting line pack still warming up when the announcements started for the start of the race. I was stuck in the back and it took me almost 3 blocks to get free. I did not feel bad about the start being slow. That was probably a help.

The second kilometer was faster than my desired pace and made up most of my lost time. Three and four were perfectly boring, but almost the right pace. I felt good going into the last kilometer and was pleased with my performance up to then.

The last kilometer was run well…I thought. I did not notice any slow down and was really only looking to stay on pace and not make up any time. I would have been pleased with shaving 20 seconds off my PR instead of 40 like was planned. Knowing that today was going to be a long day, I intentionally did not try to kill myself on the last kilometer. I just wanted to hold my pace. And I thought I did. But, obviously, I fell off of my pace time and added 29 seconds to my planned pace for that kilometer.

The final result is that, though I got a PR by 1 second, I know I could have done much better. I am disgusted with myself for slowing down so much. I was not dying. I could not have run much faster, but I could have done better than I did. I just can’t believe that I slowed down that much when I have been getting so good with my pacing lately.

*When adding all the times there is a discrepency by 1 second. That is because I did not figure in all the tenths and hundredths of a second.

**I believe there were two factors that caused the crowd to be small. There were only about 60 runners. First is the fact that we started 15 minutes earlier than what we were told yesterday at registration. Second is that the marathon went off at 6:00. The better runners were in that race.

Happy New Year!

New year’s eve party
We had a good time last night at some friends’ house. We are not much for staying up and ringing in the new year. I do stay up past midnight quite often, so it is not unusual for me to be up for the change of day/year, but not my family. Last night was a rare treat. Our friends threw together a last minute bash and called us yesterday afternoon. Our family, theirs and another missionary family met together about 8:00 to sit and talk in the new year.

We had too many snacks and candy. We did run out of drinks though. When you have 19 people hitting off of just 13 liters of Coke, Sprite and Diet Coke for 4+ hours, you tend to run out.

Shortly before midnight we walked our party down to the park to shoot off our fireworks. The noise was impressive. Most of the neighbors just shot theirs off in the streets. We were the only ones at the park.

Traditions
One of the customs here is they take a piñata that is an old man. He represents the old year. You burn the old man. Often they will fill him with fireworks and as he burns the thing explodes quite violently and impressively. The neighbor’s party had one and we watched from behind the crowd as he exploded. When the explosions got more violent, the Mexicans were running and hiding behind the Americans. I think that was because the Americans did not have enough sense to get further back.

We saw people carrying suitcases, which is a representation of having a prosperous year of traveling. We were told, but did not see, that the people will eat 12 grapes which represent having a blessed 12 months of the coming year. Another tradition that we did not see is that the people will throw a bucket of water out into the street. That represents throwing out all the problems from the previous year.

First run of the year
We got home a bit after 1:00 and I got to bed pretty quickly so that I could get a good start on the year’s running. I did an 8.6 mile run. That is the longest run I have had in some time.

New year’s day party
Today we were invited over to the house of another set of friends. With parents that live here in town and a visiting set of parents, there were 13 of us to eat lunch, play games and generally have a good time. This family is the family that is our closest friends here in town. We really have been blessed to have so many good friends around us.