American Parkway Half Marathon

Sacramento Zoo Zoom 5K

Running of the Elk Thrive 5K

I was so not ready for my alarm to go off early again this morning (why must I get up earlier to go to a race than work?). As I stumbled around the house taking care of the dogs and getting ready to drive off to the race, thankfully I was too tired to think about whether or not I'd be ready for my second 5K of the weekend.

Thankfully, by the time I got to the race, I was wide awake (perhaps a big thank you for coffee?) and excited. Would I be able to finish in the top three of my division again and take home another award? The half and 10K runner took off 15 minutes before us, and the time until race start moved by quickly.

As I was warming up and stretching, I noticed that my legs were a bit stiff. Not surprising, but I hadn't felt anything until I started stretching. Oh well. I hoped to get off to a hot start and hopefully momentum would carry me through.

I indeed did get off to a hot start but was a bit concerned as the start of the race all felt downhill (which meant the latter half would be up) [Note: my GPS says that the first mile ended 2 ft higher than it started). The first mile was over before I knew it, and I nailed it in 7:33. I continued my momentum into the second mile although I could feel it wasn't going to be as good as the first. Still didn't feel much uphill running. I completed mile two in 7:41. [Note: my GPS says that the second mile also ended above where it started although by just 3 ft.]

I started to feel tired on the third mile, but I continued to charge ahead. I passed and was passed by a few runners on the third mile and didn't lose to much time as I finished it in an even 8 minutes. With a tenth of a mile to go, I didn't have much of a kick left in my legs, but I knew I was racing for a PR. I was able to get that final 0.1 done in a 6:13 pace, and ended up beating my PR by 5 seconds:

Woot! My first new PR of 2016. Hopefully I can beat it again in a couple of weeks at the Sacramento Zoo Zoom.

As for my "metal hunt", my time was good enough for second in my division, so I once again received a top finisher award in this race. I tried to make a cool picture showing both sides of the second place medal along with the 5K finisher medal (blah!), but it didn't turn out as cool as I would have liked:

The runner who finished first in my division also won the division last year. And in good news for me, he's 39, so he's out of the division for next year. Unfortunately for me, the top two finishers for the male 30-34 division were both faster than I and both are 34.

In yesterday's Giant Race Riverfront 5K, I finished in the top 7% of males and top 3% overall. In the Running of the Elk Thrive 5K, I finished 26th overall/18th of men which put me in the top 4% overall and the top 9% of men.

The Giant Race Riverfront 5K

This morning I took part in the inaugural Sacramento Giant Race Riverfront 5K at Raley Field in West Sacramento. It was a beautiful morning, and the weather was perfect for a race. This was the same locale as that of the Shamrock'n Half Marathon that I ran a couple weeks ago where the weather didn't cooperate (this race, of course, was quite a bit shorter).

The starting coral for the race was not very wide and they chose to go by the honor system for lining up rather than having markers showing the expected paces where runners should line up. The lack of the help in lining up always gets me. Is it really that much effort to have a few markers? It seems like every time there are not markers, I always have to spend the first quarter to half mile weaving in and out of walkers and slow runners. Today's race was no different.

I spent a bit of effort getting myself clear of the massive blockage at the start. Once I got going, it was pretty smooth sailing. One nice thing about starting "randomly" is that you continue to pass runners throughout most of the race. My GPS watch had the race being a little short, but in the end, I came very close to setting a new 5K PR for myself (my 5K PR is 23:53.6):

Along with performing quite well, my results compared to the rest of the field were also quite impressive. I finished 10th in my age group (30-39) which was in the top 10%. I was 29th of the males (top 7%) and 38th overall (top 3%). Not bad for a field of 1400. I know there were a lot of walkers, but I'm not sure when I'll ever do so well again.

Weekend Double

For the second time ever, I have signed up for a weekend double. My last weekend double was in October of 2011 so it has been a while. Like that time, both races are a 5K. And also like last time, doing the double wasn't my plan. Last time, I had signed up for the Run for Courage 5K and then my work offered a free 5K on the following day. This time, I signed up for the Running of the Elk 5K since I finished third in my division and won a medal and thought it'd be a good opportunity to win another. Then a few weeks later, I found out about The Giant Race. How could I not sign up for a race with a theme of my favorite baseball team?

Unfortunately for my medal aspirations, The Giant Race is Saturday and the Running of the Elk 5K is Sunday. So hopefully I will not overdue it on Saturday to the point it affects my performance on Sunday

Not sure it's really going to matter though. I had hoped that I would have lost a few pounds since the Sac Beer Week 5K, but that hasn't been the case. I think it will be hard to replicate my performance from last year being 10-15 lbs heavier. In addition, a week and a half ago, I "twisted" my bad knee. I haven't ran since, but there were a couple of nights that I had planned to do so, but work got in the way. Work has really been affecting my ability to get out and run, and I'm not seeing a line of sight on that stopping.