Ride, Run, & Race Report

Ride - Had a very good 22+ mile bike ride on Friday. I actually averaged 17.2 mph for the first 10 miles. I don't think I've ever averaged that fast for 10 miles, so that makes me super happy. I started getting tired about halfway in and slowed down, bringing my overall average for the ride to 16.2mph. I'll take it! The route was mostly flat, but still this is a good result for me as I'm not a very strong cyclist. I'm convinced that the hill training is paying off!

Run - Met my running partner Saturday morning for an easy 4 miler. Most of the running group was not running at all because of the race the next day (half-marathon & 5K). I was planning to run the 5K mostly as practice for the sprint tri coming up in a few weeks and my running partner wasn't racing at all, so we decided to do any easy run anyway. While running, we also planned to meet up at the live.love.tri site next weekend and scope out the course. This is going to be her first triathlon so she's a bit nervous, but I'm excited about it.


Race Report - Last year I volunteered at the first water station, this year Husband & I ran. The half-marathon started at 6:30 with the 5K having a 7m race start. The location is quite a drive from our house and we expected parking to be challenging, so we needed to get up at 5am.When the alarm went off, I was thinking that it was silly to get up so early just to run 3.1 miles, but did it anyway.


I don't have too much to say other than I thought that the race seemed well organized. The 5K course was well marked, and volunteers were friendly. My race time was so-so for me with an official time of 29:20, 9:26 pace. I think I was 5th in my AG. There is really nothing wrong with this result, but since it was a full minute and a half slower than my last 5K, I admit to being a bit disappointed. However, given that I've only run 6 times in the past 4 weeks due to back issues and vacation, and still pulled off a fairly average 5K result for my abilities, I know that I shouldn't be too hard on myself.


[edited to add: After sleeping on it, I realized that this 5K result was faster than any of the 5Ks I ran in 2008, 2009, or 2010. What seems average this year would have been above average for me in the past. I'm feeling much more satisfied this morning than I was yesterday.]

[edited one more time: offical results are up and I want to note that I finished 23 of 134 women in the 5K which puts me in the top 20%. Happy about that also.]


Tomorrow is a scheduled rest day, but if I feel okay and the weather cooperates, I might ride my bike after work and save the rest day for Wednesday. We'll see...