Category Archives: personal

Training Update

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My weekly training sessions with folks from the West Penn Track Club have been really helpful. Yesterday evening, I did something that there’s no way I could have done before training with them. I ran two miles’ worth of 400 meter intervals at an average pace of 7:00! If I keep this up, odds are good that I’ll be able to run the Pittsylvania Mile in under 7:30.

In other training news, I ran 10K with Edey today and got her to run a personal record for both that distance (49:34) and the split time (28:50). That’s about an 8:00 pace. I definitely didn’t run the first half as fast as I could have because I didn’t want to leave Edey behind. I figure I could have shaved a minute or two off had I been going full speed. I’m hoping to be able to run the Father’s Day 10K in 45 minutes or less.

2006 Race for the Cure 5K

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[2006 Race for the Cure 5K bib]It was naive of me to think that I could run a personal best at the Race for the Cure. There were far too many walkers clogging the route. The really annoying thing is that there shouldn’t have been any walkers on the race course at all. The walkers had their own course and were scheduled to start at a different time. Obviously a lot of people didn’t realize that or didn’t care. After all, rules apply to other people. *grumble* Next year I’ll definitely start close to the front of the pack. I’d rather be passed by the really fast people than have to pass the really slow people.

Anyhow, though my time of 27:30 wasn’t a personal best, it was still my best recorded race time. I figure I lost 2-3 minutes on the first mile alone. After that, though, I ran a hair over an 8-minute pace. Later in the day, I ran a training 5K in Schenley park with Edey and Father Michael Darcy (of the Oratory). My time on that was about 25:30.

My next race will be West Penn Track Club’s Pittsylvania Mile. I’m hoping for 7:30 or better. After that, I’ll be running the Father’s Days Us TOO 10K for prostate cancer research. My goal is to run it in 45 minutes or less. I’ve done sub-49:00 once in training, so I know it’s not impossible.

2006 Fineview Step-A-Thon 5K

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The finish line was 400 ft higher than the starting line. I climbed 381 steps to get there. Needless to say, I wasn’t shooting for a personal record in this race. 😉

The temp was a little chilly at the start of the Fineview Step-A-Thon 5K (probably about 45), but it rose 10 or 15 degrees before the end. Physical exertion helped warm me up, too. I made a mistake at the beginning of the race that’ll correct next year. There was a flat stretch at the beginning that was intended to separate the pack before folks ascended the first set of stairs. I paced myself as I would have for any other 5K, which got me stuck behind people that walked up the steps instead of running up them. Next year I’ll sprint the beginning so people can be stuck behind me instead. 😉

I finished in 29:06 (9:23 pace), which is better than my Run With HAART time, but nothing to get excited about. I was 6th out of 7 20-29 males and 47th out of 56 runners. On May 14, I’ll be in the Run for the Cure 5K and I’m shooting for a sub-26:00 (8:23 pace) time. My goal is to run a sub-8:00 mile at the Pittsylvania Mile Run on June 3.

Been Busy

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I’m sorry there have been so many link posts lately.  I  can’t possibly give a full post to every interesting site I ever come across, but I would like to share them with folks. In fact, that desire brought about the existence of this blog in the first place. More importantly, though, it’s an easy way of giving readers something to look at when Real Life™ interferes with the process of writing real posts. The rate of frequency and length of link posts will drop very soon. The vast majority of these links were bookmarked ages ago and I just got around to doing some spring cleaning in Bloglines.  However, that doesn’t mean that I’ll be posting much meaty stuff in the near future.  For various reasons, I’ve been trying to cut down on blogging.  It’s been interfering with other aspects of my life, not the least of which being my marriage.  If any of my guest bloggers would like to step up and produce thoughtful content, I would be ever so grateful.