Saturday's Race

What a great event!  The Pensacola Runners Association's (PRA) annual Beak Lake Challenge 4 Mile Run was a huge success.  Over 150 runners showed up!  The weather was pretty good with just enough of an overcast that the sun wasn't beating down on us.  However, that also meant it was humid.  But hey, we live in Florida.  It's always humid!  LOL  The trail was well marked and even most of the roots were well marked.  I have a habit of falling during these trail runs.  Not this time.  I was able to stay on my feet the whole race.  I did stumble one time, but was able to recover.  Made me a tad nervous as I twisted my left ankle just a bit.  And yes, it was the 'bad' ankle.  It turned out to be nothing serious.  Took a rest day yesterday.  No problems today at all.

Sweet awards too!

Now the race itself.  Since I am still getting back to my pre-injury level, I wasn't sure how I'd fair in the race.  I went out at a pretty even pace.  I told myself I wanted to at least go 3 miles before stopping.  It's still hard for me to say that!  Keep in mind that before my foot injury, I was running 13 miles without stopping.  Anyway, I got just past the 3 miles point and had to stop and walk.  I did this probably 3 times before the end.  I was spent.  Nothing left in the tank.

Needless to say, I was surprised to see my time of 36.13 earned me 2nd place in my age group.  Not near as good as last year, but hey, I did stop 3 times and walk!

Overall, it was a great day.  The PRA uses this race to hold their annual elections.  So, after the race, they held their elections and elected the new officers.  Good food and good company.

Week Summary

Well, it has been a great week for running and working out. Tonight's run means that I have either worked out at the gym or ran 27 of the last 28 days including 18 straight. For me, that is amazing! Just 2 short years ago I weighted in at 250 lbs and was terribly out of shape.

It has been a struggle to get back to my running level before my foot injury. Until tonight, I haven't been able to go much more then 2 miles without having to stop for a bit. Tonight I completed my 5K training run without stopping once. This run really made me feel like it is indeed coming back.

Yesterday's race went pretty good. As good as I had expected that's for sure. I have another race coming up this Saturday. The Pensacola Runners Association (PRA) Bear Lake Challenge. A 4 mile trail race. It is also the annual membership meeting where the next group of officers are elected. Should be a good day.

There is one thing that I need to fix though. I need to figure out how to get back into my early morning runs. I just can't seem to get my ass out of bed any more! What the hell!!! Right now I am getting my weekday mileage at the gym on the treadmill, the elliptical, and the recumbent. I NEED the road mileage! I will overcome this, I will!

Race Report

Tiffany H and myself

St John's Sunset 5K

Well, this was my second race back from my injury. I'm still not where I was before I got hurt. I'm not sure why it is taking so long to get my endurance back. I suppose it is normal, but since I am new to all this running, I haven't got anything to compare it to.

My plan was to go out strong and go for as far as I could at a relatively fast pace. I did just that. At about 1.55 miles I had to stop. From that point on, I did a kinda run fast, walk a minute, then run fast again. I probably repeated this process 4 times.

You might wonder why I was running this way. Well here it is. I have a very hard time running at a slower pace. For me, what works is to just go out hard and take a minute break and repeat. To be honest, I first 'saw' this in action at the Pensacola Beach Half Marathon. There was this guy that I keep catching up to. He would run for a distance and then walk for a bit. He repeated this I don't know how many times. It must have worked for him as he ended up beating me.

Now back to the race. I met up with Tiffany H. from DailyMile.com. She and her husband are both in the Navy and stationed at Corry Field. I ended up finishing in under 28 minutes. By far not my best time, LOL! All in all though, I'm fine with the results.

Here are the official results:

Place - 148/553
Div/Tot - 6/19
Finish - 27.38
Pace - 8.54