Plano Pacers Fresh Start 5K 1/31/15
The first month of 2015 is gone already! My goals of 2015 come in some time goals and mileage goals. Out of 500 miles of running, I did 51.48 miles of running. Out of 6000 miles of cycling, I have done 469.2 miles. I would say this is on track because January/February are more focused on running. I have two race time goals and I accomplished one today! 5K under 30 minutes! WOO HOO!
In case you thought Tony is also running 5K, he is getting very
close. After last year’s injuries, he
didn’t go through surgery after all and he was running on hotel treadmill and
riding on plastic bike everyday of the week this week. The weather is cold and gloomy, but little
wind, so I thought Tony would go for a club ride, but coming back from later
time zone to earlier is always a challenge and he didn’t prepare for the ride
last night after another run. So he
graciously came along with Wasabi the Dog.
Probably the happiest creature of the team was the dog. She finally got her stitches out from her
major knee construction surgery and now is out of famous satellite dish. Tony said she was barking at every single dog
in the park today.
The week started with inherited flu-like symptoms from Husband and this
was also the first full week at school.
My workouts are all short this week, but ended with my ever (un)favorite
late Friday afternoon meeting. I was not
exhausted, but very glad the weekend was there and Tony welcomed me home. The
alarm clock sounded at 6am and waking up with it is unusual for me. Even the park is 10 minutes drive and all I
have to do is practically show up with my bib, I still need to take care of #2
business and I prefer doing a lot of warm up.
Tony woke up shortly before 7 and said he could come. So I packed another bag for change of clothes
and off we went with the dog.
The park has a bathroom, but for some reason, it has been locked. In November race, there were two porta
potties and I gave up on visiting pre-race.
Later Tony rode to the park and he said porta potties were also gone. Today at arriving the park, I needed part two
of #2 business taken care of and luckily porta were there, so literally I ran
to it. There was a line for about 5 men
and since last time it was set up as one for girls and one for boys, I checked
the door and said, “Oh, that is not set up for any gender specific.” I heard
the usual announcer saying about 20 minutes to start and I was relieved that I
would probably get the quick visit in. Then
a gentleman called me by name and he is Steve Standifer from the bicycling club. I read about him and his pro-triathlete daughter
in online newspaper. He is a coming back
runner (that is how he started cycling to start with) and completed Dallas
marathon in December. He wants to get
back in shape to run Boston one more time.
So he said he is running 10K. I
did a quick active warm up and short runs, hard and easy and headed to the
start line.
Thanks to George Fair’s advice, I started showing current pace on run
watch and that is how I ran PR on 10K two weeks ago. I figured if I don’t see 10:XX too often, I
should be able to PR and possibly break 30 minutes. So I put my race face from the very
beginning. Going around the parking lot,
people were passing me like crazy. That
is normal. I just made sure my cadence
was high (ended up crazy high whole race) and I don’t see 10 minute in
pace. Around this time, Tony was talking
to the photographer because he recognized from his nephew’s Boy Scouts days.
Official results 29:40 AG 3rd!