Posted by Derek Lee-Wo on April 14th, 2007 in Races

I had another 5K race today and my goal was to break 25 mins. The weather was cold (about 42F) and windy. Last Saturday was the same, but during the week, the weather was perfect. The cold fronts are just waiting to move in when I have a race

Unfortunately I wasn’t successful in meeting my goal, but I still managed to walk away with a new 5K PR of 25:16, 15 seconds faster than last week’s 5K. I know a sub-25 is within my reach today, but I think I really need to get a handle on my pacing. For the first 3 miles, my pace was 7:27, 8:25, and 8:37 respectively. I still had to take a few brief walking breaks.

I think I need someone to pace me the way there are pace groups in marathons :-). My forerunner has a virtual partner. I’ll read up on it to see if it’ll work for my purposes.

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Posted by Derek Lee-Wo on April 11th, 2007 in Training

It’s very gratifying and motivating to look back at my running log and my blog posts to see how far I’ve come.  For the past month, my standard run has been 7 miles.  I do it Tue-Fri and I can truly say that it’s an easy 7.

In looking at my logs, 6 months ago, 7 miles was my long run. My normal runs were 5 miles at around a 10:40 min/mile pace. Today, I do my 7 mile runs at around a 9:45 min/mile pace.  Almost a full minute faster.

Over the last month I have noticed that my easy runs are actually getting faster.  The speedwork I’ve been doing and the 5K races I’ve been running have definitely been having a positive impact.

I signed up for another 5K this Saturday.  I will be going for my sub-25 minute time.

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Posted by Derek Lee-Wo on April 7th, 2007 in Races

I entered another 5K today, just 6 days after my last one.  It was the SonRise 5K in Plano, TX.  Today’s weather was cold.  It was 40F and on the way back home, it was snowing.  No accumulation though.
I was able to run a new 5K PR or 25:31.  This time around I was able to hold my 8:00 min/mile pace for the first 2 miles.  I had to walk a couple times in the last mile which dropped my pace.

I didn’t place in my age group…I was 4th, but I’m really excited about my new PR which improved on my PR from last Sunday by over 2 mins.

I’m very tempted to enter one last 5K next weekend before I start marathon training.  I’ll make that decision tomorrow.

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Posted by Derek Lee-Wo on April 4th, 2007 in Races, Training

After my last 5K this past Sunday, I decided to sign up for another one this Saturday and I’m contemplating doing a 3rd the next weekend. Seeing how close I am to placing in my age group is a driving factor. I think on a good day (and small enough race ), I have a real chance of placing in the top 3.

After thinking about it, I actually like the 5K distance. It’s short enough that I could go out fast and if I screw up, I only have to suffer for less than 30 min. With a 10K, I would have to suffer for twice as long. I think the recovery from a 5K should also be shorter and a taper probably not necessary so it would be less disruptive to my weekly mileage than a longer race.

I’m also trying to fit in extra 5K races before I start my marathon training plan on April 22.

Like my last 5K, my plan is to go out at an 8 min/mile pace and try to hold that for as long as I can. If I can hold it for the entire race, I could break 25 mins which would be great!

On the training side, I’m back to running 7 miles/day. I have found a renewed motiviation to continue losing weight so hopefully I can break through my current plateau and make some progress to my goal of 160 lbs.

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Posted by Derek Lee-Wo on April 1st, 2007 in Races

Today I ran the Big D Texas 5K. The 5K was held at Fair Park in Dallas and I almost didn’t make it on time. I left home and timed it so I would arrive at the race about an hour before the start. As luck would have it, the exit I had to take off the main highway was about 0.25 miles after 2 major highways merged and there was a major accident just beyond the exit so the cops were forcing 5 lanes of highway traffic to exit on the same exit I needed to take. Needless to say, it took me about 45 mins to travel the last half mile to get to the race. For a while I thought I wouldn’t make it.

I just made it with 5 mins to spare before the official start time, but luckily the race organizers were aware of the traffic problems and delayed all starts about 15 mins. That gave me sufficient time to get a warm-up in. My legs still felt tired and a bit rubbery. Those 2 40-mile weeks took a lot of out me.

My main goal for the race was to run under 30 mins. My last 5K was 30:11 and my recent 10K a month ago was a bit disappointing as I missed breaking an hour as I ran a 1:00:50.

My second goal was to really try and push hard. I wanted to start running at an 8:00 min/mile pace and take it from there.

The organization of the race was a bit of a mess. To begin with, the start wasn’t marked, and no one knew where the start was. Eventually an official showed up and pointed to a small 2-inch white dot on the ground and indicated the start was behind that dot! We had chips, but the race was not chip timed. It was gun-timed and the chips were only used to record the time at the end. There was no starting mat to run over. I ended up right in the front as that was where I happened to be when the official pointed to the starting dot and was about to start the race.

Being in the front, I started off a bit too fast. I think I must have run the first 0.25 miles at around a 7 min/mile pace. I managed to settle down though and I ended the first mile at a 7:54 min/mile pace. The rest was actually downhill from there. I ended up taking multiple walking breaks.

Despite the walking, I managed to finish in 27:52. I broke 30 mins! My splits were as follows:

Distance	Avg Pace
1.00 mile	7:54
1.00 mile	8:52
1.00 mile	9:42
0.1 mile	8:16

Not quite the even or even negative-splits I would have liked to run, but overall, I’m happy with the result. I didn’t end the race with the feeling that I could have done better today. On a perfect day I think I could have done better, but with the stress of the traffic, the rushed warm-up and the tired legs from last week, I’m very happy.

I ended up placing 4th in my age group Based on the time of the 3rd place finisher, if I took one less walking break, I would have placed 3rd. In looking at the results from this 5K and the last one I ran. By later this year, I will be placing in my age group!!!

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