Todd and I went into the city this morning to run the 5K. This race was way uptown 168th street. We haven’t been up this way before so we left early. Good thing, the GPS initially put us on East 168th Street even tho’ we programmed West. So we lost 10-15 minutes with that. Because of the mistake, we drove by Yankee’s Stadium, which I’ve never seen before, so that was cool. (yeah, been here since '93 and haven't been to a Yankees game, go figure)
Parking is always an adventure. We found parking about 13 blocks from the start. We ended up jogging to the start as our warm-up. Once we got over there, we had just enough time to do a few striders. These short fast efforts help me get out of the gate quicker. I didn’t have to use the first mile as a warm-up today.
Saturday was a tough 2500m swim, 1:40:00 bike then weight lifting and I’ve done no speed work so I wasn’t sure what to expect from myself this morning. Also it’s 50 degrees and raining… I decided 7:30 min/mile would be a good goal. I was also hoping that by starting 7:30 pace, I wouldn’t blow up. The idea here is to get a baseline. This would not be a Heart Rate run tho’. We are going to RUN today! 23:18 or better is the goal.
Todd and I started in the same corral today. Because we did our warmup and got to the corral late (5 minutes to go) they had already compressed the corrals. (not sure why they bother to do this, it’s unnecessary). So we packed into our corral as best we could. Plenty of people with slower numbers mixed in with us. Probably not going to be an issue for me but Todd is going to have to fight for his pace in the first mile or so.
Horn sounds and we are off. I’m not even sure I could see Todd 60 seconds into the race. I kept peeking at my watch for pace info, I have zero feel for my speed right now, the watch is going to be helpful today. There is a bit of a hill and I’m reminded that I need to start doing my hill runs soon! I was not strong on the hills today as you can see on the graph.
There were 5370 runners today and yes it was crowded but the corrals definitely make a difference. I did very little dodging around today. A mile into the race, I felt that the pack had established itself. The hills provided opportunities but overall it was a good running environment. I’m sure as you go back further in the pack they might not agree.
I missed the mile mark but I was fairly confident that I was 7:30ish. Mile marker 2 I caught and my lap time was 14:34. Good deal, that inspired me to keep powering up the hill. I eventually stopped looking at my watch on the inclines. I wasn’t going to be able to stay at 7:30 pace on those… Make up for it on the descents!
I cross the finish in 22:32. 7:16 pace, much better than the 7:30 I had expected. Heck my best NYRR run was a 7:13 pace. (6:46 is the PR). I’m glad to see that I’m already running nearly as well as I did at any point last year. I feel I have plenty of room to improve. I’m hoping to see those results at the May races.
I’m not sure what to think about my HR. I think it’s too early to read into that at all. I just figured I’d post it for future reference.
Blue is pace
Red is Heart Rate
Brown is elevation
click graph to enlarge
2 comments:
Congrats on beating your goal pace!
nice run Matt!!
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