5K PR and Chicago Marathon Training
I’m having problems coming to grips with the idea of getting and BEING faster. I still consider myself a slow 6’4″ guy. I just can’t get past that idea, but I suppose running a 20:52 5K means I need to drop the “slow” descriptor.
This past Saturday I ran in my hometown’s 5k – the Waterloo Optimist’s Club 5k. It’s on a course that I run all the time in training. It’s also a very hilly course for a 5K. My goal was sub 21:00 and given the small nature of a local 5K I had hopes of at least a 3rd in my age group. I managed to go sub 21 with a 20:52 (6:46 pace) and got 2nd in my age group. I finished about 3 seconds behind the 1st place finisher in my group. I gave it all I had… I didn’t have enough left to make it a real race at the end. ”Racing” is something new and something I’ll need to work on.
These fast 5Ks aren’t really my thing, but I can say I was pretty pumped to see 20:52 as I crossed the line. On a downside though, I ran so hard I could only eat half of a post race bratwurst. ;-) It’s a tradition.
Next up is a little race called the Bank of America Chicago Marathon with 35,000 of my closest friends. I have 6 weeks to go and I’m in the middle of my biggest week – first of 2 20 milers and 55 total miles for the week. I’m very happy to report that my training is going very well. I had a little pain on the inside of my lower left leg last week, but after some icing everything is back to normal and I’m feeling good.
I have been running in my Newtons (one of our awesome sponsors for Glucomotive) and absolutely love them. Can’t wait for our trip to Chicago and running a 3:50 marathon in them on October 9th!
Congrats Gary! Very cool!