RS

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CityFest 5K: Cancer survivor, Biggest Loser and a Masters

The CityFest 5K was quite an event for me.

It started while in line to pick up my bag and bib number. I met a woman behind me who was running her first 5K. She was a cancer survivor and said that running a 5K was on her “bucket list” of things to do while she was in recovery. Evidently she had leukemia and almost died. Now she was running her first 5K and even her doctors were amazed. I regretted not getting her name or picture so I could put it in the blog, but it was very inspirational.

Then the race. My Lovely Wife and JR came to cheer us on and TJ, RS and I ran warmups around the track and got ready for what we knew would be a tough course. TJ didn’t race, but paced me and kept me motivated. I really needed his help several times. The first was at the start. All the adrenaline of the start got to me and I began by running under a 6 minute mile and my goal in the beginning was to run a 7 minute mile. TJ kept saying, “You need to slow down”. I felt like I was walking by the time I slowed down enough.

Although we started at the front of the starting line, there were about 10 people ahead of us. We passed a few in the first quarter mile and one other teen about half a mile into the race. After that, we were on our own. There was another teenager ahead of us the whole way and I was passed by a teen about 2 miles into the race, but I was able to hold my own up and down all those hills. Not bad for a 50 year old.

As we got to the stadium where the finish included a lap around the track, TJ remarked that I was only 3 seconds way from a PR. Wow, that was exciting. Then the only bad part of the run happened. A gate was open going into the stadium and so we headed for it. Then a nice runner who was making his lap around the track saw us and shouted for us to run further around the stadium to find the entrance. So we had to stop and turn around and get back on the road that lead around the stadium (I noticed later that the gate was closed). So I lost a lot of time and missed a PR by over 30 seconds. It totally threw me off.

We entered the track and ran the lap and TJ peeled off and I finished 6th overall. It was a fun run. TJ went to find RS and help him to finish strong. After a few minutes we saw them entering the stadium and we cheered RS to a strong finish. Not a PR for him either, but 2 minutes faster than two weeks ago and he was running on 4 hours sleep because of work.

We all went in the gym for the giveaways and the awards ceremony. It was neat because Gina McDonald from “The Biggest Loser” was the MC. As many of you know my Lovely Wife has lost 86 lbs and I have lost almost 100 lbs in the past two years. Gina lost 113 in her quest. So it was a cool thing to hear her story. We don’t watch cable since I don’t think it is worth the price, so we didn’t know her when we saw her. But I can see why she was chosen. She is very vibrant and energetic and obviously worked hard to lose her weight. So that made things a lot of fun. My Lovely Wife got to meet her after the event was over and tell her how much she had lost. Very encouraging.

Okay, so overall I came in 6th and won the Masters division age 40 and up! I finished at 22:19 (36 seconds off my PR). RS came in 16th overall and 3rd in his age group with the only two others who beat him also beat me. Once again, I can’t thank TJ enough for all his help and motivation during the run. And it was fun seeing Neill Tyler @BigBigGeek (who came in 3rd in his division!) and @David_Topping at the race. It is always fun to run with friends.

I will definitely run this race again next year!

Now to marathon training. TJ says I need to get into the 50 mile a week range, so that is my goal for this week. I’ll see how it goes as it isn’t supposed to be as hot this week as it was last week.

Running never stops!

Neat view of beginning of race (circle around TJ and me and arrow pointing to RS)

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5K CityFest summary – More tomorrow

Yesterday’s race went really well.  I don’t have time today to write, but I will in the morning.  Suffice to say that it was the first time I won the overall masters 1st place (age 40 and up).  I couldn’t have done it without TJ pacing me and encouraging me to keep going.  RS won a medal as did @bigbiggeek. Congrats!

Anyway, check back tomorrow for a recap.  I think you’ll enjoy it, the dog did. 🙂

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Excited about our 5K today

I’m all rested and ready for today’s 5K.  I didn’t run or walk yesterday, just to give my body a break.

I woke up excited about the race today.  I don’t know why.  Maybe because it doesn’t really matter how I do since I just ran a 5K two weeks ago.  I’m not trying for a PR, however…  I would like to do well and will try.  TJ, as I said, will pace me and RS will run also, but had to work really late, so I don’t know how well he will be able to run on 4 hours sleep.

I am excited about my marathon training and trying coconut water for hydration.  It is going to be a long summer, but also a fun summer of training.

One thing about running, every day is a new adventure!

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Gatorade folly and tomorrow’s 5K

I had a fairly good run yesterday and I think I know why this week had been so hard.

Other than getting adjusted to the heat, I have been drinking Gatorade before running.  I just started this on Tuesday, thinking that it would help with the heat.  To be honest, I have been putting a scoop of Gatorade into a half cup of water since I didn’t want to drink too much before running.  So I gave myself a 30 minute high on all that sugar, but when that wore off around the 3-4 mile mark, I would crash hard.

As a test to see if that was it, I had nothing to drink before running yesterday (I had 96 oz during the day though).  It wasn’t easy, but I did get 5 miles in at an 8:40 pace and never felt like I couldn’t go on.  I stopped on purpose at 5 miles since I ran and walked 16 miles the past 2 days and I want to be fresh for my 5K on Saturday.  Anyway, no more Gatorade before a run for me.

I haven’t mentioned much about the 5K tomorrow since I wasn’t going to push it too hard, but now I am changing my thoughts.  It is an inaugural 5K and I have run the course and am familiar with it.  I really think I can PR it if I run it correctly.  Right now I plan on running the first 2 miles at a 7:00 pace and try to run the 3rd at 6:30.  That would give me a PR and be a good end to my 5K days as I start my marathon training.  I’m looking forward to seeing Neill (@bigbigggeek) and David (@David_Topping) at the race.  RS is going to run with us and TJ isn’t running the race, but wants to help pace me.  I’ve never had anyone pace me in a race before, so that will be really great.

Tonight it is Stouffer’s macaroni and cheese and chicken caesars (thanks big brother @fooddude4life) for the inspiration; then we will watch “The Race” Seinfeld episode.  Finally a good night rest so we can run hard tomorrow (and not get hurt – thanks Lovely Wife).

I love 5Ks.  I hope this one is memorable.

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A great running weekend!

It was a productive weekend running wise.

I got to run 7 miles on Friday, 7 miles on Saturday and 10 miles on Sunday.

Friday’s run was fun.  I ran a mile warmup, 5 miles close to marathon pace and a mile cool down.  I was really pleased, as that was the first time I ran 7 miles since my achilles injury.

Saturday was spent running with TJ and RS.  The three of us got up early and ran the 5K route we will run this weekend for the CityFest 5K.  Part of the run is on a busy road with little shoulder room, so it is rather difficult to run.  All three of us ran the route at about an 8:40 pace.  Then TJ and I decided to run it again at my 5K pace to see the best way to deal with the hills.

We rested up and then started our run. It really isn’t too bad of a course until you start the second leg of the busy road.  That is a pretty big uphill, then a run through a neighborhood with a couple big hills.  I did well until the last hill.  Suddenly my app stopped my run, which was annoying.  Then seconds later my shoe lace came untied.  TJ said, “I guess you wont forget to double tie your shoes on race day”.  True.  Then the downhill started.  The entire last mile is either downhill or level.  I did well until the end that I thought stopped at the stadium.  As we reached that point, we still had about half a mile to go.  I know on race day that we run into the stadium and around the track, but I was psyched to stop at the stadium.  So I did well until the last 10th of a mile and at that point, I lost it.  All in all, we ran just about 45 seconds slower than last week’s 5K which isn’t bad.  I’m looking forward to the race.

Sunday was my long run and considering I ran so much Friday and Saturday, I decided to run 10 miles with a 60 second walk in between each mile.  I don’t know if that helped or not, but it wasn’t easy.  I ran okay, but I could feel the effect of the miles on my body by the time it was over.

On to this week…  We have 3.5 months until our marathon in Pennsylvania.  It is slowly creeping up on us.  TJ and I were talking training last night and I think I am beginning to develop a training plan.  More on that another day.

All in all I’d say it was a great running weekend.

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The dreaded hill/trail/hill run

Some days you head out to run and things just click.

Some days you head out and it is just a normal run.

Other days are like yesterday…

TJ, RS and I decided to try out the 5K course of the CityFest 5K that is happening a week from Saturday.  Being a new course to us and an area we hadn’t run before, it was exciting to see how to run this race.  Now understand it was nearing 90, but this was a rough 5K.  Almost every 5K I have ever run starts with a downhill in the beginning, not this one.  It has a slight upgrade for about half a mile and then the hills start.  I’m thinking about 2 miles of up and down hills and not necessarily small hills either. TJ remarked that this course is not a course to set a PR on.  I guess I’ll keep to my original plan to just go out and have fun.  I know though that the competitiveness in me will come through and I’ll want to do well.  We will see.  There is a masters award given (40+), I’d like to win that.  My thought is that those who aren’t expecting this course won’t be able to keep a good pace.  I just have to figure out a strategy and then run the plan.

After the course, RS went home as he didn’t drink enough water for the heat.  I don’t think I did either.  I thought I had 96 ounces of water, but it might have been 64.  Anyway, TJ and I decided to run a trail that goes down to a park.  Not a good idea.  After the hills and a gravel trail for a mile, I was shot.  At the end of the trail we had a choice to make.  One was to go back via the trail and the other was to run up a rather large hill with traffic and very little shoulder (actually no shoulder, just lumpy grass).  We went for the hill as I couldn’t face the trail.

After the hill we just ran the neighborhood home.  Not bad, but at the top of the big hill my heal / achilles / something started hurting.  I was all taped up, but I found out after I got home that the tape didn’t hold for some reason.  So I concentrated on relaxing my foot and not pushing off but using gravity and actually had a good run at the end.   I was glad to stop and go soak my foot in ice water and drink Gatorade.  TJ went on for another 5 miles.  I had nothing left.  The hill/trail/hill run took everything out of me.

All in all it was a hard, but good workout.  I realized that during the summer I won’t be pushing speed as much as distance (except for speed workouts).

It seems summer is finally arriving a month or two late.

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Now we start training for the September marathon

Well I have somewhat recuperated from the 5K I ran on Saturday. It still amazes me how I can run a 5K at close to the same speed in my neighborhood and not feel badly the next day.  After a race however, I’m sore, tired and wonder if ill ever run again.

Maybe that’s a little over dramatic, but I have had pains where I never felt them before. My right shin woke me up in pain Sunday morning and my right heel hurt when I got out of bed. Both are already better, but it is crazy how a race can batter your body.  Glad I’m doing another one in under 2 weeks. 🙂
Yesterday was a purposely slow run. I had taken off Friday and Sunday, so I wanted to get going again soon. I got 4.8 miles complete when I accidentally stopped my app and then just walked home.  It wasn’t very hot according to the thermometer, but it was sunny and humid and I was tired.
Today is another easy run, maybe a little faster, then a workout on Wednesday.
The goal of our training (TJ, RS and myself)  now moves onto our first marathon in September.  We will run 5Ks during the summer, just for fun, but the marathon is the goal of all our running and workouts this summer. My goal for the marathon is 3:30, but I hope to do it in 3:20.
Time will tell.

 

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Spring Scramble 2013 5K race results – What a difference a year makes!

Wow, it was a fun race.  Although none of us (TJ, RS or myself) met our goals, we all did well.

Just a quick recap.  The Spring Scramble was the first race of any type we ran last year after we began running.  In fact, I had only run 3 miles a couple times before the race.  So this race has memories attached to it.  I figured I would first post how we did last year and then post this year’s results.

Last year’s race results were:

Me: Finished 83rd overall, last in my age group at 31:28 (10:07 pace).
TJ: Finished 11th overall, first in his age group at 22:27 (7:13 pace).
RS: Finished 90th overall, last in his age group at 32:35 (10:29 pace)

Really not bad considering I had only been running a month and TJ and RS had been running just a couple of weeks.  In fact, TJ ran in old sneakers that had to be glued the night before!

Okay, on to Spring Scramble 2013.

We arrived a little later than planned, but still had time to run our warmups and strides before the gun went off.  It was great seeing collegues from work and a couple of other new friends I’ve made on twitter lately.  I’m not sure they want their names listed so I am being a bit vague on purpose.

It was supposed to rain all day, but didn’t rain a drop.  It was very humid though which made things a little hard, but the temps were in the 70s and being overcast made it a good Spring race.

I did well.  I used my iSmoothRun app and wireless headsets to keep my pace.  I set the app for a pace of 6:30.  I was only 3 seconds behind after the first mile, but I knew by then I wasn’t going to keep that pace up.  The app did help a lot in keeping me running as fast as I could for the whole race.  Of course TJ was way off in front of me and RS dropped back behind me early.  I expected both, as TJ is a much faster runner than I and RS has just started getting over a virus that had him in bed for a week.  He did amazingly well as did TJ in this race.

I also decided not to wear my racing flats because I’ve only warn them twice and they killed my feet during my workout.  So I went with my Saucony Fastwitch shoes.  I love those shoes, but I wonder if I would have done better if I still had my A5’s.

Enough said… Here are our result for this year (the full results aren’t out yet, but this is what we know):

Me: Finished 5th overall, first in my age group at 21:42 (6:59 pace).
TJ: Finished 3rd overall – Wow!
RS: Finished ??? overall, second in his age group!

I don’t have TJ or RS’s times with me, but I will update this post after I ask them.  I know TJ was around 19 minutes and RS around 28 minutes.

So we all got metals, the first time that has happened.

For me personally it was a great race, even though I didn’t hit near the 20:00 mark.  I did PR my 5K by about 25 seconds.  Also, finishing 5th overall was just amazing for me.  Just guessing, there were probably 120 people who came.  I know over 170 signed up.  I think the weather kept some away.  So not a big race, but it was sweet to see the improvement we all had in just 1 year.  I am so proud of my boys!

That’s it for now.  I signed up for another 5K in two weeks.  I’m not going to push it for this one.  I’m just going to go out and have fun.  I don’t yet know if TJ or RS can get off of work to go with me, but I hope so.

Thanks for reading and for all the encouragement during my achilles injury!!!

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Spring Scramble 5K pre-race update

I had a great run yesterday.  5 miles with no pain and a lot of fun.  It was the perfect run to have right before my big 5K race on Saturday,.

I must admit that I am still a little nervous about Saturday’s race.  I really want to PR it and I would love to get below 21:00.  My race PR is 22:10 and my neighborhood PR is 21:29.  Time will tell.

Today is my off day before the race.  I usually run much better after an off day and I hope that will help.  The unknown is my running shoe.  My Saucony A5’s had to be returned with a hole in the sole, so I am going to be running in Asics Piranha’s for the race.  I’ve run in them twice so far.  Once was last week as we ran the course to get the lay of the land.  The other time was 2 days ago when I did a hard workout.  The shoes seemed to be sloppy on my feet and started causing a lot of pain on the bottom of my foot.  I think I had them tied too loosely and when I tightened them, they seemed better.  It is a little concerning though since I don’t want to be in the middle of the race and be in pain from and unknown shoe.

Tonight we do our pre-race routine.  Chicken caesar salads with macaroni and cheese.  I can thank by big brother for that since at a 5K we ran last year in Pennsylvania he and his wife made that for dinner the night before and we have eaten it before each race ever since.  We’ve since added watching Seinfeld, “The Race” during dinner – just to get motivated :).

TJ and I are healthy but RS and HM are getting over a bug as is my Lovely Wife, so I don’t know who exactly will be showing up tomorrow.  Either way, it will be fun and hopefully I’ll be prepared.  There will be several people running from my work and @bigbiggeek is coming so that will be fun.

I’ll try to post a short update after the race.

Tom

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Running workout – Not yesterday!

The best laid plans…

I went out yesterday for my workout (1/4 mile repeats at 6:30/mile).  I was a bit hesitant since I had almost no sleep the night before and I was tired.  So I decided to set out for my 2 mile warmup and play it by ear.

Well I messed up.  I started way too fast.  About a half mile into my run I could feel my achilles again.  I got a bit overconfident and pushed to hard to soon.  By the time I got back home at the 2 mile mark, when I should have been putting on my racing flats, I decided the workout wasn’t going to happen.  My achilles wasn’t too bad, but I could feel a tug and I just don’t want to mess things up this close to the 5K.  I was wearing my Saucony Fastwitch shoes (which are becoming my favorite everyday shoe), so I changed into my Saucony Mirage since they have more support.

I did well for the next half mile – no pain and felt good.  Then I felt the tug again.  I threw in the towel.  I stopped at 3 miles, went inside, got a bucket of ice water and soaked my foot for 15 minutes.  TJ asked if I had used the KT Tape, which I hadn’t.  Not because I didn’t want to, but because I forgot.

So I will try my workout today if I feel up to it.  I did get better sleep last night, however my family is passing around a virus that I am desperately trying to avoid and I don’t want to wear myself down and take a chance at getting sick right before the race.  TJ has already gotten over his virus and RS just got it yesterday along with my Lovely Wife.  HM is still in the middle of his infection.  The bad thing is it gets into your chest, which isn’t good for running a 5K.

So I will try to stay healthy and not push too much.  After the 5K on Saturday I’ll probably take several days off and walk or (as Strive Balance suggested) ride a bike.

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5K race prep – run the route to learn the route

It was a lot of fun running yesterday with TJ and RS.  We decided to run the 5K route that we will be running next week.  As I mentioned yesterday, it is immensely helpful to run the course before the race so you know what you are up against and can plan how to run it.

The race is in a medium sized town and it begins in the middle of the shopping district, so needless to say it was hard to begin since there were too many cars to run on the road and the sidewalks had lots of shoppers.  But we decided to run the sidewalks slowly and stay out of the way of shoppers as best we could.

The race starts on a rather large downhill run.  It gets your momentum going so that is nice.  In fact most of the first mile or so is either level or downhill.  As we ran, we made a turn onto a busy street with no sidewalks, that was a bit scary as cars were coming toward us.  Finally sidewalks appeared and we ran up and down over curbs and around obstacles.

About half a mile into the run we turned into neighborhoods.  This was nice as we didn’t have to run the sidewalks and we could just enjoy our run.  I had a map on my phone from last year that I used to guide us along the way and I also put my phone on “Map My Run” so that we could have the route for the future and I could give to others who will be running with us.

We wound through neighborhoods and eventually back on the busy street.  I’d say this is the flattest 5K we have run.  Some hills, but most are inclines and not really hills.  The biggest hill is at the end (of course).  No, not the hill we started on thank goodness, but just a medium hill that leads back to the shopping district.  Once you hit that street, it is an easy run for the finish.

All in all it was a really nice run.  It will be nicer next week as we don’t have to run the sidewalks and can run the streets.  If interested, here is a link to my run that I mapped http://www.mapmyrun.com/workout/277053771.

No problem for me running and I used my new racing flats.  Next week I hope to run under 21:00.  If I stay healthy, I think I will have a shot.