Runnin' to Beat the Blues 5K and Mile Races - 2 Gold Medals

No complaints. It was definitely worth cleaning the dog shit off my Adidas.

19:37 5k
First Prize in 45-49
(12th overall)

5:50 mile
First Prize overall

Runnin' to Beat the Blues 5K and Mile races were held in Centennial Park in Nashville this morning 3/29.
OFFICIAL RESULTS.


It was a decent run for me. I brought home 2 gold medals and a gift certificate.

But ... objective accomplished !! - my SEVENTH consecutive 5K personal record. Beating my old PR by 29 seconds. First time under 20:00. This will be a hard act to follow. The course was flat but not straight, a few hairpin turns and many corners. Weather was great (for me), in the 40's but the course was wet. I ran through a few puddles. Also, I did not sleep last night, woke up to thunderstorms at 1:45 am and again at 3:00 am. I had to get up at 5:15 am. So maybe there's room for improvement.

I went out fast as usual (5:47) but did not feel overly spent as I did at Tom King. It felt great. My 2 mile split was 12:11 which means my last mile must have been pretty slow, 6:40 or 50's probably. However, I had some kick left for the last quarter mile.

What surprised me was that no fast runners showed up to run the mile. I felt like it was just me alone out there on a training run with Striders prez Peter Pressman in front of me on his bike. I led the mile race from beginning to end and won with an embarrassingly slow time - 5:50. I probably would have done better if there was someone to chase. Shoot, like I said, my first mile split in the 5K was faster - 5:47. My mile interval training runs are also often faster. I was hoping for 5:30's.

Credit goes to my coach Joe Page who has designed the past 2 weeks of training for me. It should also be pointed out that there were others in my age group that beat me in the 5K, but were counted in the overall masters awards .

In addition to the medals, I got a $25 gift certificate to Boscos for winning the mile. A guy asked me at the start of the mile what I wanted to run, I said "5:20s" ... yea right. I told him I was 47, he said he "pegged me for around 27." Thankyou, thankyou!

UPDATE: Sunday - back to work:
9 miles - 64:37
7:12 mile pace
6:59, 7:01, 7:08. 7:15, 7:13, 7:16, 7:15, 7:14, 7:17
Coach calls this a lactate threshold workout. (WTF is that?) Am I lactating yet? I just do what he says.

Quoting coach:

The basis of what you are doing is LT (lactate threshold) workouts, followed by AT (anaerobic threshold) workouts, followed by intervals, followed by race. Each period lays some foundation to allow the next period to be stronger. Meaning, LT workouts build energy pathways that allow good AT workouts. Good AT workouts build energy pathways that allow good track work outs. It is best not to combine them all together, rather, step through them as you had in the last rotation.

Update II: Monday - 6 miles in 43:01 (7:10 avg per mile) Pace wasn't consistent, varied from 6:38 to 7:34, last mile felt hard and was slow (7:32). I wanted to get 7 or 8 miles but quit early due to fatigue and blister.

Race photo by Elly Foster, Nashville Striders