First Race of the Season

Hurtin'

Last Sunday was a local run race-the St. Paddy's Five Miler.  Since I train by heart rate, power, and time - I generally have no idea what kind of speed I do or do not have unless I race.  Thus, I decided to try my running legs at five miles.  My goal was to start out as quickly as I felt I could maintain for the duration, instead of my old stand-by of running faster throughout the race.  In other words, I wanted to run pretty even splits.  I also wanted to push myself hard enough that I was VERY uncomfortable, and know that I had run as fast as I could for five miles early season.

Almost done.

I couldn't realistically aim for any lofty time goal, because I honestly had no measure of my fitness...I just follow my training plan every single day.  My "worst case scenario" time was 40 minutes.  I hoped to run faster than 8 minute miles though, so off I went.
I wore my HR monitor and took splits at each mile, happy to see all of my miles in the 7 minute time range.  I'll admit I was working hard to keep running 7's, and breathing down others' necks like a cow!  In the end, I averaged 7:28's for an overall finish time of 37:21.  Definitely an early season five mile PR :).

With speedy teammates Adam and Jeff.

Next weekend, Lewiston's Spring Sprint Duathlon.  I'm hoping I get rid of the terrible cold I have ASAP, and at the very least, before next weekend!