Running the Lilac 5K

It's been a while since I mentioned running, but this morning I ran the Lilac 5K. I do it each year to get an idea of my average pace and how it changes year-to-year. Since I haven't been running nearly as much as I did in past years by this time, I knew I'd be a bit slower. (And yeah, still running in bare feet.)

The results were posted earlier today and I was #355 of 1148 runners overall with a net time of 28:25 for a pace of 9:09/mile. I finished #205 of 486 men, and 19th of 47 male runners in my age group. Last year I was a little faster.

Loading

Ran the Medved Lilac 5K

It's been a while since I blogged — and a while since I ran a 5K race. I ran the Medved Lilac 5K; barefoot, naturally. I completed it in 28:21 "gun time" although they now record net time (from the start line) which I did in 27:56 (which, of course, means it took me 25 seconds to get to the start line.) From the official results, that was 296th of 1,076 overall, 175th of 418 among men, and 17th of 45 among 40-44 year-old males. In all pretty good, I think — and especially so considering how pleasant the weather was.

According to Google's calculations, the net time sets me at 8:59/mile pace which is good although not a personal best. I've been slowly increasing my mileage since I had to quit a while last year, so I don't feel bad about that time. It at least felt good and it was actually just like a morning run. Except that I had to stand around and wait for 15 minutes rather than just doing it.

One thing I thought was funny was the guy right at the end in the gray shirt. I passed him coming up the final hill but he gave a sprint at the end and got past me. I was thinking "I'm going to beat that guy in the gray shirt" and he was probably thinking, "I'm not going to let that barefoot guy beat me!" Kudos to him for pulling ahead by a second!

Loading

Running the Fight Against Violence 5K Run/Walk with Ali

Ali and I went to The Stay Bridge Suites (1000 Genesee St.) to participate in the Fight Against Violence 5K Run/Walk. There was a good turn-out — I guess quite a bit more than the organizers had anticipated. The race headed south along the River Walk through Genesee Valley Park (Hawthorn Dr.) then back through The University of Rochester (Elmwood Ave. at Intercampus Dr.) and finally returning to the hotel. I joked that if it were closer to the heart of the 19th Ward, far fewer white people would have showed up.

Anyway, Ali ran it in 36:11 and won 2nd place for her age/gender category out of 6 other runners. There were 6 men in my category but I came in 4th among them with my time of 29:54. It's "officially" listed as 9:39/mile on the PCR Timing site which surprised me because that's slower than my 9:33 pace at The Medved Lilac 10K and 5K Family Fun Run [and this time, I think I was the only person running without shoes … people sure seem to like buying those over-the-counter orthopedics]. According to USA Track & Field (USATF), the course is actually 5.20 km or 3.23 miles, so my per-minute time based on that is 9:11.

I was a little disappointed that the promise of a gift bag from UofR and other post-race items were not available, but I can't fault them too much because the turnout was so high they didn't even have enough shirts for everyone. But you know, it doesn't really matter because we had a great time.

Loading

Running the Lilac 5K with Ali

If you recall, I've been doing some running to work up to the 5 kilometer race in The Medved Lilac 10K and 5K Family Fun Run which was today.

I ran a "long" 5K run on Monday and Tuesday, then a "short" 2 mile run on Wednesday, and another "long" 5K run on Thursday [hmm … like a train whistle warning a crossing] before resting up for the race. Well, I did it. And yeah: barefoot. And I even beat 30 minutes, finishing in 29:35 according to the PCR Timing Official Results for this years race (which placed me 397 of 864 overall and 21st among the 31 male 35-39 year-olds). This is great because I beat my 35:58 official time for the Corporate Challenge in 2001.

Ali ran too and, despite admitting not training enough, ran for the whole race and finished in 37:31.

But the remarkable serendipity of our runner numbers was the amusement of the day. We were each given random numbers and she got #123 and I got #321. The odds that I would get the same digits as her number in the reverse order was (given 864 runners) about 1 in 863. If you figure on the specific combination of 123 and 321, that's something like 1 in 745,632. Pretty neat.

Loading