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!

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Running the Medved Lilac 10K

This morning I ran the The Medved Lilac 10K, barefoot-as-usual. I actually met one other barefoot runner, Carl, who said that he also knows a third guy who looks a little like me named Mike. Anyway, this was my first 10K — about 6.2 miles. I have been averaging 4.5 miles 4 days a week, and recently added a loop one day a week that increases it to 5.2 miles. The 10K, therefore, is the farthest I've run. I decided to hold back and run slowly to make sure I was doing okay. I turned a 1:02:50 official time (10:08/mile) — it's just 3 minutes or so longer than twice my past 5K times so my pace was right on. The competitive part of the race wasn't my strong suit: I came in 966 of 1,258 overall and 66th of 77 other runners in my age group. I finished with lots of energy to spare so I could have run it a bit faster, although I probably wouldn't have moved up much in ranking even if I did. I also felt very good afterward: not short on energy, but also not sore at all.

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