05.17.08
Tags: 10K, 2008, Get in Gear, Race Reports, Racing, Posted in Running at 11:36 pm by suthsc
Once again, I participated in the Get In Gear 10K on April 26, 2008. Weather this year was.. well, not quite so nice as last year. Unfortunately, my fitness is not where I would like it to be either; but that’s another story. On to the “Official” gory details.
| 2008 |
2007 |
Overall: 286
Division: 36
Time: 44:55
Pace: 7:14 |
Overall: 289
Division: 36
Time: 43:19
Pace: 6:59 |
The time is roughly ninty seconds slower then last year though it’s something of a pleasant surprise. I was expecting more in the 46 or 47 minute range. I find it interesting that my place in the field and in the division was basically the same. I suppose the winter treated — or mistreated — everyone roughly the same. The unfortunate part of this particular race was that my minute per mile times were slipping toward the end. It wasn’t a huge amount, but it was somewhat disappointing.
One of the interesting differences for this year was that I was actually warmed up — at least to some degree — when I entered the chute. Warming up was really an effort to keep physically warm rather then for race preparation, but it was beneficial to get a bit of jittery nerves taken care of before the start. You might think that after having run any number of these things that I would be used to it by now, but — truth be told — I have never quite gotten over the feeling (and/or fear) of potential failure while waiting for the event to start. Actually, some of my best efforts were directly related to taping into that fear so I don’t really want it to disappear. Every event is an adventure.
While in the chute, I was standing near a worried mother and a young man of perhaps 10. It was interesting to listen to her advice to him and the things that he was thinking about. I was highly tempted to give him a suggestion or two regarding my own strategy, but the benefit would have been highly subjective. A road race for your typical weekend warrior is always going to be a very personal thing.
Overall — especially considering the weather — I’m pleased with the effort. Get in Gear is always a well run event, and I would recomend it to anyone interested in taking up running in a given year.
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05.12.07
Tags: Half Marathon, New Prague Half Marathon, Race Reports, Posted in Running at 5:46 pm by Mat
What a beautiful day for the New Prague race; last year we were wearing mittens and hats and this year, it was a windless seventy-degrees. My friend and co-worker, Jessica, and I ran again and improved on our race times quite a bit–which was truly an awesome feeling. Last year, I clocked in at 2:09 and some change and my race-time this year was just below 1:54. We booked it throughout the whole race and were so pumped when we realized how much we improved.
Now, I know that not many of you in the FRC have run the NP race before, but I’ve officially warned you that unless you run next year, you will receive spankings. Cindy, since you’re already into spanking, I’ll have another adversive punishment waiting.
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05.08.07
Tags: 10K, Get In Gear 10K, Personal Record, Race Reports, Posted in Running at 7:51 pm by suthsc
Due to popular demand here is my Get-In-Gear race report. I’ll keep is short, simple, and sweet.
Get in gear had great weather this year, quite possibly the best weather for this race ever. There was a slight wind, but nothing that was really detrimental to the race. Before the race antics included:
- me forgetting to wear my HR strap and watch on in spite of having brought them to the race.
- me forgetting that Franke wanted to put his
fanny pack
in with my stuff at bag check which caused him to have to wear it
- Franke breaking the buckle on his
fanny pack
and having to tie it in a knot to wear it in the race. (wouldn’t want him to be without his juicy-juice)
We lined up in the chute WAY to late and ended up at the butt end of the world. The first two miles were spent dodging the various walkers/runners while trying to move up. It was a user problem, one of these days I’m going to have to get closer to the start line. (and perhaps warm up)
Without the watch and HR monitor to control the effort, I was just going to run hard and see what happened. I’m not really trained up this year, so I didn’t have high expectations. The race went about as expected through mile four or so, then I was stuck trying to decide if I should let off the gas or damn the torpedoes full speed ahead. I sort of wavered a bit between those two options for a while, then I found some motivation. Someone was complaining about how horrible their race was going, then they passed me and kept right on going. This happened far enough from the end that I was worried about having a meltdown in the finishing straight, but it was also right on the verge of where I should be winding it up anyway. So, I sucked it up and tried to keep horrible day
lady in sight.
I rolled across the finish line with a time that I knew was very close to my PR. It was a good race; I was happy with the result. Later I found out it was indeed a new PR by a few seconds. My 10K PR now stands at 43:19, down 18 seconds from last years result.
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