{"id":459,"date":"2012-07-05T09:18:19","date_gmt":"2012-07-05T17:18:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/?p=459"},"modified":"2012-07-05T09:18:19","modified_gmt":"2012-07-05T17:18:19","slug":"race-report-seattle-firecracker-5k","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/2012\/07\/05\/race-report-seattle-firecracker-5k\/","title":{"rendered":"Race Report: Seattle Firecracker 5k"},"content":{"rendered":"

(posted at The Loop, the blogs over at RunnersWorld.com)<\/em><\/p>\n

I sort of decided to run this one last-minute, meaning I signed up only a few days before and I didn\u2019t \u201ctrain\u201d for it, as such. Not that I \u201ctrain\u201d for runs in particular, or even \u201ctrain\u201d at all. I just like to run. Although, lately, I have been more purposeful in how I run, specifically, trying to run more often and more slowly. So that\u2019s a kind of training, right? And since I\u2019ve been trying to run more slowly, I decided, again, last minute, to go all-out in this 5k.<\/p>\n

But I needed a plan, because I know from experience \u201call out\u201d lasts about 2 minutes, and then it\u2019s just trying to survive after that. So here\u2019s what I did: I made a play list of songs lasting for a total of about 26 minutes. I ordered them by changes in speed, and my goal was to run at an 8 minute\/mile pace during the fast parts, and at 8:30\/mile pace during the slow parts.<\/p>\n

I have no science to back up this rationale. And honestly, I am nowhere near able to tell how fast I\u2019m running at any given moment. I do have a GPS watch, but at a glance it can be \u201coff\u201d by as much as 2 minutes\/mile in either direction. But, for the most part, for me, 8:00\/mile is pushing myself nearly to max, and 8:30\/mile is pushing harder than my preferred \u201ctraining\u201d pace. And of course, this was not a flat route, and I didn\u2019t really map the expected paces to the elevation changes, so running by effort was not going to really, accurately, reflect my actual pace.<\/p>\n

But who cares. I had a plan and making the plan was kind of fun. There\u2019s world-class runners, elites, and competitors. I am running hobbyist. \u201cPreparing\u201d like this was just another way to enjoy the whole thing.<\/p>\n

So the idea was: start off \u201cslow,\u201d and when the music changes, go fast, then \u201crest,\u201d and then push again. I even made a spreadsheet of all of the times when the songs change. According to my calculations, if all went well, I\u2019d finish somewhere be 25 and 26 minutes, which was just fine with me.<\/p>\n

I finished in 24’01”.<\/p>\n

According to my chart, I was supposed to finish the first mile in 8\u201917\u201d. According to my GPS watch, I finished the first mile in 8\u201911\u201d. I\u2019m sure, for elites, a six second discrepancy can speak volumes. But for a chubby running hobbyist, this was a triumph!<\/p>\n

I was supposed to finish the second mile by 16\u201927\u201d, and my actual time was 15\u201956\u201d. So this is where I, conveniently, shift from being proud of my number crunching to being proud of my running. Those 25 seconds were gained going up a 100 foot climb over about half a mile.<\/p>\n

Finally, that last mile, was supposed to be 24\u201941\u201d, but was actually 23\u201925\u201d. Another 51 seconds gained.<\/p>\n

Now, like I said, this is not at all scientific, nor even very rigorous, using a GPS watch and a spreadsheet, not accounting for elevation changes, and dodging people at the crowded beginning, and a list of other mitigating factors I\u2019m sure you can come up with. Honestly, this could all be a sort of coincidence\u2014if I crunch enough numbers, I bet I could justify almost any kind of prediction and result.<\/p>\n

But as I said above, just doing the planning beforehand was fun, and added an extra dimension to the whole experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(posted at The Loop, the blogs over at RunnersWorld.com) I sort of decided to run this one last-minute, meaning I signed up only a few days before and I didn\u2019t \u201ctrain\u201d for it, as such. Not that I \u201ctrain\u201d for runs in particular, or even \u201ctrain\u201d at all. I just like to run. Although, lately, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Race Report: Seattle Firecracker 5k”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-459","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-running"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p24y52-7p","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=459"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/459\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=459"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=459"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=459"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}