I am in Memphis this week visiting my parents, and I’ve gotten into the habit of signing up for a race whenever I’m in town. It’s difficult to run in this area (no sidewalks, loose dogs, really frickin’ hot), so it nets me at least one good run during my visit. In addition, I’ve found that races in Memphis tend to be really well run, with clear mile markers, good organization, and lots of food afterward. I’m consistently impressed with the Memphis running community. So I signed up for and ran the Elvis Presley 5k today.
As I’ve mentioned before, my running has lacked focus since my half marathon back in May. Running has taken a back seat to tennis, where I’ve been playing 3-set matches 3 days a week. I’ve tried to maintain my fitness with a speed session and a long run each week, but honestly I don’t think I’m in as good shape as I was at half marathon time. On the other hand, I’ve had some fast interval workouts lately, and I did a tempo run with Todd (a 3:00 marathoner) this week and did a reasonable job keeping up with him. I decided to go for a PR and try to run under 22 minutes (7:04/mi). My previous PR was 22:43 last September.
I planned to run even splits right around 7:00. Using my Garmin, I was able to monitor my pace and make adjustments during the race. The first mile went by in 6:59, exactly where I wanted to be. I picked it up a bit for the first half of the second mile, running around 6:40 pace, until I realized that I couldn’t maintain that pace and backed off. I finished the second mile in 6:57. The third mile was painful, but I kept pushing, knowing that the end was not far away and a PR was within reach. I ran that mile in 6:51, though I had no idea at the time because I was too focused on finishing strong. I kicked for the last 0.1 mile and finished in 21:25. A new PR by 1:18, and 35 seconds faster than my goal! I finished 52nd overall (out of 699), 40th among men, and 4th in my age group. One place higher and I would have won an age group award!
This was probably the best race I’ve ever run. My splits were even, I set an aggressive-yet-manageable pace, the course was nice and not too crowded, and the weather wasn’t too hot. I don’t think I could have run this any better.
Now I’m starting to think I could get under 21 this year, and 20 isn’t too far away. Even if I’m not able to run high mileage because of tennis, I think I can still improve by pushing harder on my interval and tempo workouts and focusing on my weekly speed session and long run.
