Thursday Night PR!

Yes, last night's 5K was a great run, and I did get a PR. Not only that, but it was just a fun race.

You see, last night's run was the CitiStreet Corporate 5K, and a part of that run is that teams from different companies around the First Coast would run and compete against each other. Now, those of you that know me also know that I work for a computer company, and we spend the vast majority of our days sitting at a desk, exercising nothing but our fingers. Well, I was able to get a team of nine people from my company together to run the race. Some had run before, most had not, and some were just walking to support a good cause (Girls on the Run). But the responses I heard last night and today were almost entirely positive, and a few of the folks from last night are even talking about continuing to run, and even entering upcoming races!

Now, of course I knew this would happen, but it still feels pretty good to help get other people hooked on this running thing. That way, I won't be the only nut in the office.

In any case, back to the run. It was a nice flat course, around the Jacksonville Municipal Stadium and Veterans Memorial Arena. The course was kinda strangely wrapped around on itself, but it ended up being very easy to follow, and with surprisingly few sharp turns.

During training, I'd been having a friendly competition with one of the guys in the office on our training times. He was doing mostly treadmill work, but he was also a high school triathlete, and he's in pretty good shape. I was not a triathlete (although I was a swimmer in high school), and I'm still not in pretty good shape (although I'm getting better). Along the training, we were doing rougly 10 minute miles each. Not bad, especially since I'm still trying to get my runner's legs back. In training, I had been doing mostly 5/1 run/walk intervals. But I am competitive.

So, the gun goes off, and after about 30 seconds, we get to the starting line, and he takes off like a bat out of hell! Now, there's no way I'm going to let him completely run away from me, so I pick up the pace a little, thinking that I'd catch up with him, remind him that there are, in fact, 3 miles to run after that first tenth. Unfortunately, it took a little longer than a tenth of a mile to catch him -- I finally did at about .4 miles in, and at one point, I looked at the Garmin, and saw that I was running a 7:35 pace. Now, some of the folks in the RBF can keep that pace going for 3.1 miles. I'm not one of them. So I slowed down (quite a bit), and we both ran along until about the first mile mark. Now, at this point, I'm still feeling really good, despite the fact that I have yet to take a walk break. So, I just kept running. And at some point right around there, I turned around, and my buddy was no longer with me.

Ah, the joys that training can bring...

So I just kept on running. At mile 1, the split clock read just about 9:00. My Garmin read 8:34. At mile 2, the Garmin said something just short of 18 minutes. Well, at that point, I decided that with 12 minutes to finish before my goal time (30 minutes), I might as well take a little break. I'm not sure at this point if that was really a good idea, because I only walked for about 15 seconds and I could just feel the lactic acid performing a blitzkrieg assault on my thighs. I ran again, and then took another walk break around the 2.5 mile mark, mostly because the wind was picking up.

Coming around the next corner, though, I saw a bunch of people hopping up on the sidewalk, but I just couldn't bring myself to do that... I had to stay on the road and make sure to go around the sign directing us to the right. I don't know why, it's just a pet peeve of mine to see people running around the other side of the sign. I know it's not *that* much of a difference, but it irks me. Oh, well... to each their own.

Coming up on three miles, I see the clock reading 27:00. Holy crap! I can run a tenth of a mile in a minute, and until now, my PR was 29:03 at last year's Vestcor Bridge Run. So, I put the spurs to it... as much as I could at that point, anyway, and I cross the line at:

28:20 Gun time!

Which, according to the Garmin, was 27:47.

The unfortunate part of this is that there were no timing chips, so now I have to do it all again next week at Disney. Luckily, that's a pretty flat run, too.

But for now, let's do the happy dance for me!

(Oh, and yes, I still have a couple other posts to get to... the Nike+ review will come shortly)

New Toy!!

I guess I'm one of the first to get the new Nike+ SportBand. As you can tell from the new widget on the sidebar, I've tested it out by running all the way from my house to the end of the cul-de-sac. I know... I'm a rock star. But so far, I think this is going to be great, and it'll do wonders for trying to track mileage and performance when running indoors, like when it gets too hot or there are too many hurricanes around for outdoor running.

A full review will come after running in my 5K tomorrow.

Weekend Running

Saturday was absolutely beautiful here in North Florida... but a tad warm (about 87 degrees). And with my folks coming into town, both Lana and I decided that the time before they showed up could be much better spent getting the house in order. And hitting the driving range -- which was fun, but showed that any game I had last year (which was none) has completely gone away. It may even be negative now. I kept finding balls on the ground behind me... I may have been hitting backwards without even noticing it.

Sunday, we woke up bright and early and ready to run, and found out -- after we had gotten ready, mind you -- that it was pouring down rain. And it continued to pour down rain all morning. So, we headed off to church, and then off to brunch, at which point the rain had pretty much stopped. The only problem is that when my folks come to visit, well, we don't starve. So, a food coma and some watching of the Masters later, we finally got started running.

4.03 miles in 41:00. I was hoping to keep it below 10:00/mi, but it wasn't all *that* bad.

I don't know if I mentioned it earlier, but we're about to go on a cruise to Key West and Cozumel, leaving Miami on Thursday. I'm definitely bringing running gear, and would love to go for a run in Cozumel, but I'm also going to bring the Garmin and make sure to wear it as I'm running around the track in the boat... and to see if it works plotting the running course in MapMyRun. That should be interesting.

But mostly, I just can't wait for the cruise.

Lana said it all

If you read my lovely wife's blog, you already know this. If not...

We got into the Peachtree 10K! Woo hoo!

At least now I know what my 4th of July plans are going to be.

Of course, Lana posted more here. Check it out!

A good run, and a quick endorsement

That last post was pretty short, eh? Well, there's a reason for that. I posted it over the phone, while in my Jeep, on the way back from my run. Text messaging? Heck, no! That's not nearly high-tech enough for the likes of me. No, this came from Jott. Jott is a service that will take voice calls and transcribe them into emails, text messages, and even blog posts and twitter updates. They even have an interface to the calendar I use (30 boxes). It's not perfect, but it's pretty slick for sending short messages out without being one of those jackasses that try to text and drive at the same time. Oh, and best of all? It's free. Of course, that means they won't be giving me anything special for this fantastic review, but hey, the thing just plain works.

Anyway, the run yesterday was great! Of course, I'm running in a new area of town (near my new gym), and I don't know the area very well yet, so I was putting potential routes into MapMyRun and I thought I had found a really good one -- except that I got there and it was a gated community, so I had to turn around, and get back to the gym to do the same route I did last week. For some reason, though, this week just felt much better!

I was running a 5/1 interval, since it gave me so much trouble last week, but things were just... happy. I wasn't slowing down at the end of the running period, and my walking phase was nice and relaxed, but going at a good clip. Obviously, I'm still not back to where I was before my multitude of injuries, but still... making good progress.

I promise my next post won't have nearly so many links in it.

3.13 miles in 30 minutes...

3.13 miles in 30 minutes and 50 seconds, more to follow. listen

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Brooks Review (and some other stuff, too)

OK, I've been a bad blogger. I went out and got new shoes, ran in them, and never even posted about them.

The verdict:

Love them.

That's not to say that the Saucony shoes I had before are bad... maybe it's just the running with the orthotics in that make those so nasty. But the Brooks seem to have more stability in them. I ran about 3.5 on Monday with the Brooks (and the new knee brace, socks, shorts, and shirt... I was looking like it was the first day of school), and they ran great. The support was fantastic, the cushioning was unbelievable, and the fit was spectacular... even in the 12's.

So, since the last entry, I did 3.5 on Monday at a 4/1 interval, and 3.4 on Wednesday at a 5/1 interval. Wednesday was pretty dang hot down here, and I was soaked through by the time I finished the run, but it felt pretty good. I did take a wrong turn at one point, and I was slowing down more than I wanted to at the end of the 5 minutes, so I think I'll be staying at that pace for a while, just to work on the endurance necessary to keep it there. I figure that if I can build myself up to the point where I can average about 9:30 in the running part, I'll be doing pretty well for the 24th.

Yes, there's a race on a Thursday... it's the Citistreet Corporate 5k, and I'm trying to get lots of my work folks to discover the wonder of running. So far, I've got one guy that'll be a good competition (he'll probably kick my butt, but you never know), a couple who say they're walking, one who is going to sign up for a 5k "mosey", one who rides his bike to the neighbor's house, and two that are saying they're going to need somebody holding up a jelly doughnut for them to follow. Oh, and one that registered to help out the charity (Girls on the Run), but may not actually do any walking or running. But he may show up for the post-party with "free" beer.

Yep, these are the folks I work with. Hopefully, at least one or two of them will get the bug after they see what a race environment is like. I managed to successfully avoid ever wanting to run in a race until I actually did it once... and now look at me! I'm a freakin' running blogger!

So, on on to this weekend and (hopefully) getting in the pool for some cross training.