Back in November, I entered the Yahoo! Turkey Trot 5k on a whim. I have been running semi-regularly for a couple of years now depending on work (so, “semi-regularly” is probably a little too generous). I generally do 2.5-3 miles at a 7:30-8:00 min mile pace, depending on how much I’ve been running or not running at any given time. One day back in September when I had been running a little more than usual, I just decided to keep going and ran a personal best 6 miles. I actually felt like I could have kept going even further (after 4 miles I slowed down to an 8:30 min mile), but had to stop because of a meeting. I think it was that run that made me decide to still do the Turkey Trot, my first ever race, even though I was coming off several weeks of not running and didn’t get in the training I had planned.
The thing that scared me the most about the race was that I always run on a treadmill and have yet to figure out how to properly pace myself without one (I don’t really like wearing a watch when I run, which is the biggest issue). So, I decided to pick someone who I thought would run at a safe pace for me and challenge him to a match race. While it was a good idea in theory, my chump-picking skills are apparently a bit rusty. As we were walking from the meeting point to the starting line, I sidled up to Holger and, not so humbly, challenged him to a friendly match race (I believe my exact words were something like, “I couldn’t possibly lose to you, even though I haven’t run in weeks”). Well suffice it to say that I got mine. Not only did Holger beat me by 1 min and 13 seconds, but I nearly killed myself trying to keep up (not having a watch and falsely assuming that his pace was as slow as my normal one made me think that I was running slower than usual).
In the end, I actually won my age group and did it at a respectable pace of 7:32 min per mile. The joy of that victory was somewhat tempered by the fact that there were only 4 other people in the Male Under 30 group (however, I did take a bit of pleasure in the fact that this guy was one of them and finished 1:37 min behind me — sorry dude). But, none of that erased the fact that I lost my obnoxious challenge. I tried to make up for it by being a relatively gracious loser and giving Holger the gift certificate I won.
Anyway, Dag, the guy who got a bunch of us from Connected Life to run in the Turkey Trot, has been getting people to sign-up for the San Francisco Half-Marathon on February 4. I figured that if I started running hard 3 days a week 4 weeks before the race that I could have a reasonable shot of completing 13.2 miles in a not embarrassing time (or at least without walking). Well, t-4 weeks was last Sunday, and I ran exactly once last week. So, I’m thinking that the Half-Marathon might be out of reach this year. However, I want to start running more anyway. So, I’ve decided to pretend for the next 3 weeks that I’m going to run on February 4 (regardless of the fact that it’s also Super Bowl Sunday and the weekend of my mom’s birthday — but, what’s wrong with a bit of self-delusion for a good cause?).
Today was my first day of training, and I ran 4 miles at ~7:55 min per mile. I barely made it, which is not particularly encouraging. But, I was really sore from assembling furniture this weekend (you try crouching and crawling on the ground for 8 hours), and I’m hoping that had something to do with my suckiness today. I’m going to try to run again tomorrow, but I think I’ll just do 2.5 miles at 8:00 min per mile. On Thursday, I’m going to try to crack 6 miles again and hopefully hold it close to 8:00 min per mile.
Anyone want to handicap an over/under on how long this lasts?
I give it one week 🙂