Coogans 5K

This past week has been frustrating. I’ve come down with another respiratory infection. So far I’ve just been taking Sudafed and Mucinex to handle it but I don’t seem to be improving. I missed a number of my workouts in hopes that rest would help me recover. I can’t say that it’s helped. I may just have to go back in for an antibiotic as it’s already been a week. If it turns into a full sinus infection, that will be another week.

As an added challenge, I had a mistake on my calendar. I thought I had another week or 2 before my 5K. Todd mentioned it to me as we were running our hill loop this week. Sure enough, Sunday was the Coogans 5K. This is not a fast 5K course, there are some good hills to climb.

Just because it’s not a fast course, doesn’t mean there aren’t going to be fast runners. Todd’s bib pace is 6:46 I think and he didn’t get placed in the first corral. I guess the 5K specialists are registered for this one. (there is money to be won after all).

So Todd and I started side by side in the corral but he left me behind rather quickly. That wasn’t a surprise. He should have been at the front of our corral and we were probably more around the 2/3s mark which was more accurate for me. I felt pretty comfortable running along the flat leading us under the GWB/Cross Bronx Expressway, then we hit the first climb. Once again, I got to see how running hills gives me an edge on a course like this. The group I was running with all fell behind and I started to move through the pack ahead of me. As it flattened out, I was back to running with the pack. I was probably about to the 1 mile mark when the leaders of the race were headed towards me. I had no doubt that the first 6 or so were running under a 5 min mile. Me? Not so much. I felt that I was running fairly well tho’ until around mile 2. At that point it just started to feel very hard to breathe and I could tell that I was losing ground. Fortunately there was another climb and again I was moving through the pack. After that the rest of the course is downhill or flat. Quite a few people burned past me on the downhill. Hopefully I’m not losing all the ground I made up on the uphill. (some downhill practice is in order tho’). As I approach the finish I look over to see where Genine is, we completely missed each other at the Brooklyn race back in December. I found her easily today.

Typically you finish and kind of have an idea of how you did. My result was worse than I thought it would be. 24:23 or 7:52 pace. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, my lungs immediately went into a full asthma attack when I stopped. It was nasty. I was coughing for the next 3 hours just to get back to somewhat normal.

Looking at the results, there were 5 Carlsons in the race. I was the fastest of them. So that's something right? 

Hopefully this cold clears out soon. It’s worn out it’s welcome.

On a more positive note, my swimming seems to be improving every time I get into the pool. That is back to being fun. 

Here is a video of the finish. Todd is at the start, I am towards the end of the video. Unfortunately the compression Flickr adds doesn't make for a great picture when you go full screen.