Sunday, September 27, 2009

Renaissance Run & What's Important


Today I ran 16 miles at lake Hefner, and in a couple hours I'm going to go run 6 easy miles in my Vibram Five Fingers. I promise a report soon, but I feel that I don't have enough experience yet with only about 25 miles on them.
I ran the Renaissance Run yesterday. This was my first major race of my running career. Up until I ran this race 4 years ago, I ran little small town races of usually less than 50 people. It is very well run but a bit hilly. However, I always seem to do well here. I ran it in 21:08 and that was good enough for 1st place in age group. Even though there were two other races in the area, there were over 300 people in this one.
My son and grand daughter spent the last two nights here with me. As I was getting ready for my race first my son then his daughter climbed into my bed. As I was leaving my bedroom to head out for the race, my grand daughter said "pa pa, come here." She hugged me and said "have a good race." Then she laid down and went back to sleep. That's what's important.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Makin' Tracks 5k & Training


Yesterday I ran the Makin' Tracks 5k. I've run this before and it is moderately hilly. I still wanted to see where I stood but wasn't going to hurt myself if I could help it. I didn't blog about my last 5k before this one. How much more can I say about these? It was overcast and looked like rain. In retrospect the rain would have helped, but it held off. I started out too fast, go figure, running the first mile around 6:30. After that it was slower each mile. The humidity was terrible and many runners were suffering afterward. I finished in 21:25, slowest of my last 3 5k's but good enough for 3rd AG.
Today was a scheduled 16 mile training run with the club. It is two loops around Lake Overholser. It rained all afternoon yesterday, all night, and was raining when I got up this morning. I considered not going, but it was an easy rain no lightning. I was early and a friend asked if I'd like to do 2 easy before the start. Duh, OK, let's do it. I started with the club for the 16 and fell in with a group running a pace I thought I could maintain. It appears there was some miscommunication on water stops, and we had to get water from a garden hose after about 4 miles. Then finish the first loop with no more. They did get one up at the start, and promised there would be more on the second loop. So I started out on the second and really started picking things up. There was water this time and I finished with a total of 19 miles. Things seem to be going well with my training. I'm less than a month away from a marathon I plan to run as a training/birthday run.