Dave – Signed up for my first race in 18 months

So after last weeks 100K ElliptiGo ride for ALS, I decided to find a run club in Miami. I looked up on Meetup and found one literally 2 blocks from where I live during the week that has about 300-400 runners every week. I’ve lived here a year and never knew about it, I guess I never looked as I couldn’t run and was in the gym at the time they run. So I went on Tuesday and sure enough a large crowd, they run anywhere from 3 – 4 miles and set off in 3 groups, slower 12 – 15 minutes, medium 9 – 12 minutes and a faster group sub-9. I knew I could run about an 8 min pace but decided to set off at the end of the second group as I didn’t want to get left behind not knowing the route. We quickly caught up with the runners in the slower group and gradually past them all and I finished about 8th at the end. So Friday when I got home I signed up for the Say No To Drugs 5K race in Clearwater on Dec 20th, giving me about 5 weeks to prepare for it. I texted my old coach and he said he would run it with me and I said I was going to target around a 23 minute finish, forgetting you have to run over the bridge and back.

So Saturday morning I decided to go for another long ElliptiGo bike ride and headed out for a couple of hours. Well it turned into 3 hours and just over 45 miles. My legs were tired around the 37 mile mark but I managed to push through it and finish strong. Sunday we did our usual triathlon and my 4 mile run was as usual starting with about a 8:30 min first mile and cutting about 20 seconds off each mile finishing with a 7 minute mile. So for today’s run club I decided to run with the fast group, it was a little smaller tonight due to the colder weather (it was still 67 degrees) so I didn’t want to get left behind so tucked in about 6 runners back from the front and just went with the flow. I’m usually such a watch runner, checking my pave and mile time every mile, but tonight I wanted to just run with how it felt. The pace was a little fast, especially as I hadn’t really ran in a competitive type group for 17 months, but I felt good. Breathing was a little heavy but I felt like I could maintain the pace. I heard the mile beeps but didn’t look until the end of the third mile as I wanted to stop my watch at the 5K mark. By the time the 5K was reached my time was 21 minutes 47 seconds, so I was pretty pleased. I could feel a little tingly sensation in my hip area but not too bad. I had stretched for an hour before the run and about 10 minutes after the run, followed by a banana and protein shake. Feeling pretty proud and looking forward to getting some runs in so I can shoot for a sub 22 5K now with the 2 bridges. No run tomorrow and a slight incline run on the treadmill Thursday. No long ElliptiGo ride Saturday, want to make sure I get plenty of rest as I start to ramp up my running.