New PR – 5K…. Suck it, “Gobble Gobble”!

Ah, sitting outside on the patio just chilling out in the sun and listening to some Vin Scully….. nothing to do and very much enjoying that.

Things have been moving along in the "Beck Land" with work, Purple Teeth Cellars, working out and some travel. No complaints on this end, but I decided to make a recent addition to the racing schedule about 10 days ago. Marc decided to put a race on our shared calendar as a joke a few weeks ago but as the date got closer, I thought it would be a good way to assess where my fitness was at. Since I didn't race in Portland in the beginning of April, I didn't really didn't have a good gauge to see how things were going from a numbers perspective. Well fortunately for me, the "Top Pot Doughnut 5K" was being held right by our house at Greenlake. Given that I ran a 5K in late November on the same course called "Gobble Gobble", this was a perfect opportunity to see where I was at.

To be honest, "Gobble Gobble" (obviously in honor of Thanksgiving) was my low-light of 2010 with respect to racing. I ran that 5K in 25:10, which was really not a good showing even if it was a PR. And I may have had some good reasons why I didn't run my best but I was still quite peeved about my effort and the subsequent result. After all, I had run a 10K at a quicker pace 3 months earlier so the fact that I couldn't get it together for a race half of that distance was very disappointing. Plus I tend to end all of my training runs by running the last 10% really hard and I couldn't find that gear when I did Gobble Gobble. All in all, a crap race for me.

A few things changed after "Gobble Gobble", many of which have been documented in the blog in previous entries such as doing Crossfit, switching coaches and modifying my eating habits. These changes had been in place long enough to see if any of them have had any impact on my running. So keeping all of this in mind, I decided to sign-up for the "Top Pot Doughnut 5K". I also thought there had to be a cool t-shirt involved. LOL. But then I decided that since Marc put this on OUR calendar that he should be doing this race as well. He could run 5K (~3.1 miles), it was flat and right near the house, so why not. Marc wasn't super-psyched initially but when I threw in the offer of giving him my finisher's doughnut post-race. For those of you who aren't familiar with Top Pot Doughnuts, they have a nationally known reputation for being pretty awesome to the point where they inspired a Seattle Seahawks player to actually commit a crime to obtain some (guess he wasn't making enough money as a professional football player, but I digress).

After having a great pre-race dinner with some friends the night before, Marc and I were fueled up and ready to go this morning. The sun was shining and the temperature was good for racing (high 40s), so we had that going for us. I was feeling pretty good but was a tad nervous since it was my 1^st race of the year. Marc and I saw some of the running buddies before the race and we had some laughs as usual. The local 5Ks are fun with a mix of families and serious runners, and a good non-profit, Childhaven, was benefitting from the large crowd turnout.

I hung out with one of my regular running buddies, AK, at the start. We were going to be going roughly around the same pace, so that got me a bit focused on the task and where I wanted my mile splits to be. I was targeting around 7:30 per mile. The gun went off, we crossed the start line and I just wanted to get into a groove. The 1^st mile seemed ok and I felt solid. I let up on my pace slightly on the 2^nd mile, so I really tried to focus on getting back in the game so I could finish strong. I kept thinking during the last bit of the race about a typical Crossfit workout and how much harder I tend to push myself during those efforts, so that helped out mentally.

My overall pace was 7:36 per mile, which wasn't bad considering what I was shooting for, but in a shorter distance (as opposed to a ½ marathon), I want to be more precise with my pacing since you have less room for error. Since I was focused on my pace per mile, I didn't want to get caught up in my overall time. When I crossed the finished line, I was really pleased to see that I came in on the right side of the 24 minute mark with an official time of 23:54, which put me in the top 4% in my age group and as well as for the ladies entered in the race. This is also a new PR by almost 90 seconds, so that is a huge deal for me given how short the race is.

After I finished, I went to see if I could find Marc on the course and he came up pretty quickly so I ran the final stretch with him. To be fair, he didn't need my help as he looked very strong coming in. A new PR for him too! Woo woo! Of course, I held up my end of the bargain by giving Marc my doughnut as you can see from the picture.

Between the Crossfit "cross-training", the workouts being assigned to me by Kim (also racing today in Wildflower – she killed it today!) and the food changes, I think we are heading on a good path since having the injury bug earlier in the year. I'm pretty excited to see what the rest of 2011 brings on this front.

And now I don't have to associate a PR with an event that I felt was a bad race for me. So suck it, "Gobble Gobble"!