So I did my first event of the year on Sunday. It was a 5K run on the roads of Santa Monica. I have only recently started my running training so this race was going to be interesting. I don't think my base training would have had time to show any improvements yet and I haven't really been working on speed work at this stage so the race would give me a base line for where I am at and what I need to do to improve.
Two friends of mine, Geo and Bruce, were also doing the event. Bruce, I know is a great runner and Geo is a bit like me, just trying to get a reading of where he is. I decided to run with Geo as we had similar targets. We plucked a very ambitious time of 20 minutes out of the air and arranged to meet at the start line.
The warm up went well. I had already cycled about 7 miles to the start line so this got my core temperature up. I followed this with some stretching and then went for a 1 mile warm up run. I never normally do enough warm up so this was definitely an improvement. I still think I can do a lot better though.
Geo found me just before the race start. We positioned ourselves towards the front but with the really fast runners ahead of us. This was to avoid having to pass too many slow runners on a tight start.
The gun went off and the race was on. It took us all of about 10 seconds to work out that we were going to start our run considerably below our target race pace. We allowed this as we intended to increase the pace as the race went on.
The course took us up Barnard Way and onto Main street. Our heart rates were already in the high 160's so we knew there was no hope of any aerobic running that day. As we approached Santa Monica we continued to lift the pace. After turning onto Ocean Avenue and passing the 2 mile marker the leaders passed us on their return to the finish. My friend Bruce, then passed us running back towards the finish. He was doing really well.
Just before the turn Geo raised the pace a little more. At first I went with him, but he slowly broke away. I held him to about a 20 meter gap but I couldn't pull him back in.
I finished in a respectable 21:13.1 and Geo finished ahead of me in a time of 20:59.9.
My friend Bruce finished with an great time of 18:10.1 placing him 30th overall.
Geo finished 92nd out of 1173 with me finishing 10 places behind him just outside the top 100.
My average pace was 00:06:51 minute miles. Not bad as a starting point. I need to try to get comfortable with a 00:06:30 pace by Malibu.
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Congrats on the race and smoking fast times at the 5k .
ReplyDeleteIn regards to converting the stand alone 5k to the triathlon run split :
I found when i race Malibu that my best hard pace is similar to a long stand alone race (10 miles) or about 1 min per mile slower than a stand alone 5k pace . Probably because of fatigue from the swim and bike and of an already warm core temperature acquired during the ride . I find that doing tune up races and tris prior to and "A" race really helped my running splits . And that my times improved as the season went along .
Well done .