Category: Running

Today was the second running of the Gran Carrera Autotal ’07. It is hosted by one of the large Nissan dealerships here in town. They even raffled off a car! They are celebrating their 25th anniversary. There were 2 divisions. One was a 10K race, which I ran and the other was a 5K walk.
Concerned that I would over sleep, I woke up several times in the night to check my watch. I use an alarm to wake up about 8 or 10 times a year and am always concerned that I won’t hear it. I did not have any problem hearing it this morning and was up at 5:45. I arrived at 6:40 for a 7:00 start. That was plenty of time to get oriented and warmed up.

The weather was GREAT! Probably the best race conditions I have ever run in. The temperature was 75 degrees the whole race (last year we finished at 82 degrees). There was a drizzly rain 15 minutes before the race start and about 15 minutes into the race. The road was wet, but did not have too many puddles to wade through.

I don’t know yet how many participants were at the race, but they were expecting 1200. I would guess they got close to that number, though there were quite a few shirts left over.

When I ran this race last year I remember it being the first race I had ever run with kilometer markers. But, last year they were all wrong. Splits ranged from 4:18 to 6:44 per kilometer. I know I can hold my pace better than that. This year was no different. My splits were between 3:33 and 6:12…on consecutive kilometers! They really need help laying out their markers. It was supposed to be a 10K race, but measured 9.1 according to Google Earth.

Trying to keep any sense of pace and using the kilometer splits to help me know how I was doing overall was a waste of time. I crossed the half way point at 26:36 and finished at 52:48 (a second half time of 26:12). That gave me a slight negative split. A pace of 9:20 per mile.

I did much better overall compared to last year. Total time then was 1:00:54, for an 8:06 faster finish this year. Last year’s pace was 10:46 per mile which put me at 1:26 per mile faster this year.

Since the race started an hour earlier this year and my church service started an hour later than last year, I had 2 more hours to stick around for the awards ceremony and raffle. I was looking forward to it. I found my former landlord and hung with her for a while. We have not seen each other in quite some time (we only get together at races these days) and had plenty to catch up on. She ended up having to leave before the festivities began. I stuck around a while longer and then found out that the raffle was not supposed to start for 2 more hours! I left. You have to be present to win any of the prizes and they made the raffle 3 hours after the end of the race. Ridiculous.

As I was leaving I walked by the table where they were giving out the food and T-Shirts after the race. Since they had extra shirts they were just giving them away. I snagged one for a friend who did the walk, but had not registered for the event. This is the first race I have been to which did not allow “morning of” registrations.

I am very pleased with the way everything turned out, other than I did not get to play in the raffle. I was very happy with my time. Conditions were much better this year than last, but it is at least a tangible marker that I am improving on my running.

This week’s running schedule got all messed up starting on Monday (I did not run). Because I did not want to put my long run at risk later in the week, I had to adjust my running schedule for the rest of the week.

I did my speed work on Tuesday (normally Monday). Wednesday I took off and did a long weight workout instead. Thursday I had planned to run my weekly recovery run, but make it a bit faster so that it would be like having a very long tempo run, but not quite that fast.With all the events Wednesday evening, I decided not to run on Thursday since I only got 4 hours of sleep.

Friday I did my 10 mile long run for the week. I combined a new 4 mile run that I have put together with part of my familiar 8 mile run. I did not do the whole 8 miles, but cut it a bit short, hoping that I would not cut it too short. All said and done I ran 10.05 miles. That is pretty good for guess work. If I could talk someone into giving me a nice Garmin Forerunner then I would not need to guess.

It was a fun run. Nice to get away and be by myself for a bit after all the excitement of the week. I chewed on a Clif Bar for about 3 miles. This one went down better than the one I had last week. It was not as chewy. But, I did forget how long it takes to choke down one bite. My first bite this week was a huge chunk. Mistake! I choked on it for a long time before I could finally get it down. I took smaller bites after that.

I pre-registered for a race this weekend. This is the first time I have ever done this. I have registered the morning of all the other races I have run. I think there will be lots of people surprised tomorrow morning when they show up to register. The race directors say they won’t take registrations on race morning. I think they probably will though. They would be bucking the system too much if they did not allow “morning of” registrations. They raised the price from last year though. I think it was $30 (pesos) last year and $55 this year. Meaning it went from $2.70 USD to $5.00. No big amount.

I ran this race last year and had a pretty good time. I wonder if it will be closer to 10 km, or 9 km like last year? It is being run an hour earlier for which I am excited. I might be able to stick around for part of the awards and raffle. They are giving away a car this year!

I will tell you all about it tomorrow afternoon.

I had a fun run this morning which capped off a pretty good running week. Monday was not so great, but after that, the rest of the week worked according to plan.

Wednesday I just had a 2.5 mile tempo run. I was about 10 seconds faster than my goal pace. Thursday was a 4 mile recovery run. I ran it too fast–about 1.5 minutes per mile too fast. I don’t feel like I suffered for it.

Today I had a 9 mile long run. For me, anything 8 miles and over is a great long run. Up to that point, it is just a run (some people need 16+ miles to call it a long run). I only have an 8 mile course well marked out. Anything longer than that I just guess at and hope I get close to my distance. Today I wanted to go down a certain street so that I could tack on the extra distance I needed. I ended up turning 1 block too late and added 1.28 miles to my 8 mile course instead of just 1 mile. No biggie.

Long runs are supposed to be between 10:31 and 11:31 per mile. I ran it in 10:43. Right on target.

I ate my first Clif Bar today. It is one I have had in the cupboard for over 2 years. I am not sure what it was like originally, but it had the consistency of moist chalk today. I started eating it at mile 5 and it took me 3 miles to get it down. Good thing I had plenty of drink with me.

I felt pretty good after the run and it probably has to do with the Clif Bar. However, I was ready for my afternoon nap about 3 hours early today.

It was 81 degrees as I was out running this morning. I got started about 1 hour late.

Today I just had a short 2.5 mile tempo run. I ended up running my 5 Km loop. I used the first kilometer to warm up in 6:33. The next 4 Km would make 2.48 miles. That is close enough.

• Km 2: 5:25
• Km 3: 5:05
• Km 4: 5:39
• Km 5: 5:20

My goal pace was 5:40 (or better). Some of the split irregularity probably comes from not really knowing where the split is at Km 3. A quick check with Google Earth tells me that I hit my split timer .09 Km early. That is approximately 90 meters. Based on my stride length and turnover, that would be about 20 seconds early. Putting Km 3 at 5:25 and Km 4 at 5:19. That is a geeky way to say that each Km was within 6 seconds of one another. That is pretty consistent.

I posted about how great my running has been recently. That was all fine until this morning.

The universe conspired against me today. I first got off to a slow start due to our water pump dying and having to tend to that. I also had an email that required immediate attention (which, by the way, is still unresolved).

As my iPod has met an untimely demise (R.I.P.), I am dependent on my iRiver to keep podcasts flowing into my ears. I keep all my podcasts in iTunes which is managed by my wife’s Mac. I then export the podcasts I want into a folder on her computer. From my computer I tunnel in and pull the files to my machine. Then I drop the shows onto the iRiver for my listening pleasure. Last night I did not have time to get all of that arranged before going to bed, therefore I needed to do that this morning. It did not go well and I ended up on my run without it.

Since today is a speed day, it is not so bad to not have my iPod distraction. I often will turn it off or stash it on the side of the track while doing my speed work.

I did not get out of the house until 40 minutes after I planned to leave.  That was enough time to have done my run and been back home.

The track was closed today. I was really looking forward to doing some good speed work. Now I don’t have my podcasts to listen to, nor can I do track work. Drats!

By this point, I decided to just do my warm up and cool down runs and call it a day. I tacked on a little extra to the run to make it worth having gotten out of bed for. I also did a good long stretching session after the run.

No running sob story would be complete without a hurt foot. My big toe on my left foot hurt today for some odd reason. Don’t you feel sorry for me?

Tomorrow is weights and maybe I can get back on track on Wednesday.