Posted by Derek Lee-Wo on November 12th, 2006 in Training

Since running my first 5K last week Sunday, the entire week has been a struggle.  I wanted to continue to run 20 miles for the week and since I only did 3.1 on the Sunday, it meant I had some extra miles to make up, so I ran on Monday afternoon and I continued to run in the afternoons.  It was tough. For the whole week, my legs just felt tired.  I think I wasn’t getting enough rest and running in the afternoons mean the weather was slightly warmer.  I was also getting a lot of side stitches which was unusual for me.

So much so, on Wed I was going to run 5 miles but was only able to manage 3.  I decided to not run Thu afternoon, but to run Fri morning instead so I’ll get 36 hrs rest instead of 24.  That was a little better, but I still barely held on to run the 20 miles for the week.

I was scheduled to run 7 miles today, but surprisingly, I felt great this morning.  I had gotten 48 hrs rest since I last ran and the weather was much colder.  I was actually singing a bit after 5 miles and my heart rate stayed super low.  I felt so good, I ended up running 8 miles instead of 7.  It did hurt a bit after about 7.1 miles, but I feel much better since my legs weren’t tired, my HR was low and I seem to be back to how it was before last week.

I will run 20 miles again this week, but I only have to do 4 miles on Tue, Wed, and Thu.

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Posted by Derek Lee-Wo on November 5th, 2006 in Races

Today I had my very first race which was a 5K. It was The Half 5K in Dallas. I managed to place 5th in my age group….right in the middle since there were only 9 people in my age group. I also placed 95th overall out of 241 runners. My chip time was 30:11.62. I’m a little disappointed as I really wanted to come in under 30 mins, but I came very close and I know I will do better the next time around.

Here is a link to the official results .

This race was a great learning experience. I had been training recently at about a 9:46/mile pace, but I didn’t know how fast I should run in the race. My initial thought was to run the first mile at my training pace and see how I felt. If I felt good, I would then increase the pace, running negative splits.

Well, as the starting horn went off, that all went out the window. I had my Polar watch on and I ran the first mile at a 8:20/mile pace, even creeping up to faster than that at times. With all the excitement and people around, my whole game place disappeared. It wasn’t until the second mile did I manage to settle into a nice consistent 9:00/mile pace. Still faster that I would have probably liked, but it felt doable.

I started to get a side stitch at round 2.5 miles so that made it really tough. My pace eventually dropped to around a 10:30/mile pace as I struggled with my breathing and trying to run through the side stitch.

If it wasn’t for the stitch, I could have probably gone a bit faster. My average HR during training is usually 154 with a peak of around 172. For the race, the average was 167 with a peak of 176. I was only working a bit harder than my training runs.

In the end, I enjoyed the experience and I’m already thinking about when my next race will be. I’ll probably do another 5K and follow that up with a 10K.

I didn’t have my music for this race, but I think I will definitely use it the next time around. It will help me focus on my running and help me ignore all the others around me. It was also very disconcerting hearing my breathing which I don’t normally hear while I’m training. I know there is a lot of debate as to whether racers should listent to music, but I tried it without and next I’ll try it with music.

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Posted by Derek Lee-Wo on November 2nd, 2006 in Training

This week I had 2 new milestones.  I ran 7 miles for the first time on Sunday and I ran a total of 20 miles for the week.  Both of these were accomplished because I just couldn’t stop running…

Based on the plan I have, I was scheduled to run 6 miles on Sunday and run a total of 17 miles for the week.   Well, I felt so good on Sunday, I decided to run an extra mile.  Then on Tue I decided to run an extra mile again.  I was then planning to run 4 miles today to bring my weekly total to 19, but about a mile or so into my run, I started counting the miles for the week and I realized that if I ran an extra mile, I would end the week at a nice round number of 20 miles.  I decided to wait till near the end to see how I was feeling and then make a decision.  Well, at 3.5 miles I felt great so I pushed on to run 5 miles.

My knee hasn’t given me any problems this week which is also great.

Coming up next is a 5K race on Sunday.  This is my very first race and so it should be an interesting experience.  My goal when I first registered was to break 30 mins.  Barring an injury, this will be easily accomplished.  I still need to determine what my new goal would be.  Maybe I’ll aim for a sub-26 min time.

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