St Malachi 5 Miler

Got up at 7pm so as to have plenty of time to get my youngest to his SAT at 7:45am, I didn't have an appetite so didn't eat anything wasn't a problem since it is a 5 miler and I normally train without breakfast in the morning.

Got downtown about 8:45am and was able to find a very good parking space across from the church, sat in my car till about 9:15am then jog over to cheer in the 2 miler. The warmup was about .3 miles then jogged in place for about 15mins while I cheered on the 2 milers, there were a lot of inner city kids running the 2 miler and that was a very good thing to see especially the pride in their faces when they realize they are really going to finish.

It was a lot colder than I was expecting but after the jog the church did consider taking off my jacket but I wasn't in the mood to jog back to my car. Met up with Sara about 9:40am and decide to play it by hear about what to do about the race. Not quite sure when the race started just saw people moving and moved along with them, took over 1 min to cross the start line, the course was hillier than I was expecting but I was able to run all of them, one thing that was weird was the up hill really have no downhill and even when you came back around it still felt like a hill. Hated running on the grates on the bridges, so on the way back used the sidewalk of the bridges instead.

I ran with Sara for the first 1.5 miles and then realized that she was probably running faster than she has trained even thou I was running her pace and told her she needed to slow down, and we also decided she needed to run/walk the hills so as to avoid burning out since this is her longest race and the goal is just to finish. Lets not forget the nasty hill at the finish.

There was quite a bit of ice and snow on the course and no spectator, skipped the single water station and kept on moving, had to tight my shoe between mile 3 and 4 first time that has happened. The race stayed crowded through out, felt like I was dodging people to the finish.

mile 1: 10:30 148bpm
mile 2: 9:59 150bpm
mile 3: 9:44 150bpm
mile 4: 9:22 165bpm
mile 5: 9:15 168bpm

My Garmin indicated 49:29 pace of 9:48 for 5:05 miles, final result are posted 49:07 9:49 pace and I have a new PR. My only other 5 miler was the Turkey Trot last November which I ran in 50:06 @ 10:01 pace.

Ran back to find Sara after I was done, she was about mile 4.5 and now have to face the last hill, she finished strong in 55:31 which was great since she was hoping to finish in under 1hr, we jogged around the block to cool down.

Got back home and did Yogamazing:Yoga for Runners, I highly recommend this free podcast that you can get from itune it stretches every possible leg muscle and shoulder. Slight pain in the left butt cheek and knee but felt better after the yoga and will be iceing and using the massage stick before bed.