Man that was fun and scary all at the same time. As always it was so fun to be at that race seeing everyone from all the teams and such milling around before the race, during and after. That is one of the things I love best about all racing is seeing the people. I will say going into it I was a bit scared as it had been some time since I had run a race of any distance where I was going to give it my all right from the start. In the ultra's I find it easy to say heck it long I will just start easy; and in road races I just have not put in a honest effort out in sometime.
I knew I had put together a solid 4 months of running and was is pretty good shape. Not my best but getting closer than I have been in years. I knew I had not done much speed work but figured I had done enough that I thought 5:40-5:50 pace was doable for me. I wore my Garmin 405 for a few reasons. 1) I thought it would help me not go out to hard from the start and 2) It would give me confidence when I saw that I could hold 5:40ish type pace and not feel like I was going to die. It was a good call by me.
Mile 1- Got out good, very in control as we made are way up the rise toward Snelling, a good start. 5:57 split
Mile 2- Well I never saw the 2 mile marker so I just kept on rolling as I was excited I was going to make it to the turn around the school before the leaders had past by me! It had been a few years since this has happen.
Mile 3- I was trying to catch up to a group that had just passed by me as I knew I needed to keep things rolling. A bit bumbed I did not feel any tailwind since we had it in our face a bit going out. Seems like the winds always swirl around there. I had a average pace of 5:46 for the last two miles.
Mile 4- So at this point I was working hard to keep pushing on. I was telling myself do not quit like the past few years. Keep pressing. Much harder to re-train yourself to do this that I thought. I believe I was like 6:03 pace but the Garmin read 1.06 miles so I guess sub 6 for a true mile. This mile has a gentle uphill for a while so it is always the slowest.
Mile 5- At this point my lung could not believe how hard they where working. I was happy to keep passing a few people and holding my spot. I was wanting to slow as I saw the line but kept going after it as I knew I needed to. I ran a 5:39 last mile which made me happy.
All in all I did not run anywhere near my times of the past when 27:30 was a normal day, but I was very happy about the run. I thought coming in I would be between 28:30ish and 29 mins or so. I guess 29:10 fits the bill. 5:50 mile pace for 5 miles. Still lots of work to do but as I did my 7 mile cool down I thought about how things are starting to go my way.
Evan " litte Pre " and Summer in the kids run. Just look at the arm carriage people
5 comments:
Nice race. Yeah, it's hard to get used to slower times, but 29's respectable! Evan's got better form than I do - my arm swing looks like the woman in that photo.
Nice race and nice race report. I have been bouncing around the blogosphere looking for race reports from the weekend to share on the MDRA blog. I linked your report over at http://runminnesota.blogspot.com/2010/03/race-results-and-reports-roundup-2.html
Great job Kurt! The training's definitely paying off. And yeah - I have no doubt it will help for the ultras too :)
your the man kurt! i am hoping to get back to stringing two sub-6 minute miles together. your in awesome shape bro.
Thanks everyone. As I always say it's about the trip to get there not just the payoff at the end.
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