I never took the time to understand why most training plans have shorter races as part of the regular training, but I think I get it now.. As I wrote earlier in the week, I decided to mix it up a bit by running a 5K yesterday and switching my long run to today, and i’m happy I did. Its been such a long time since I actually ran just a 5K, we’re talking almost 4 years? Most of my shorter races in that time have been either 3,4 or 5 milers, so this was a welcome change.

I found myself up early, even though I didn’t get home until late on Friday night from Virginia, and I was actually pumped up for the race. Well, I think I was pumped up to run and the race was just a convenient way to get the adrenalin out .. I ran an easy 6 miler on Thursday and didn’t do ANY training on Friday (no running and no cycling)… so based on the intensity I’ve been training at, I really needed to run. I headed out at 7:30 and made my way over to the little town of Alburtis to register for the race.

Its funny how the crowd of runners at a 5K is so different from the crowd of runners at a marathon, there certainly were a lot of egos present. It might be that the runners are just so focused on the race or something, I don’t know. Anyway, I made my way back to the car to head out for a warm-up run, which I really took easy. I did 2 real easy miles before heading back to the car to wipe off the sweat and get some hydration.. by the time I got cleaned up, it was time to get ready to line up for the race. I didn’t see hardly anybody I knew, although being new to the area still, that should be expected. I think if I remember back, I only knew the Macungie ambulance crew and one of my neighbors …

So my strategy was to go out fairly fast and maintain a 7:00/mile if I could, that should bring me to about a 21:00 finish time. The race started pretty fast after that, and the only surprise was that I didn’t have to wait to start running like when I run marathons, a BIG difference. Regardless, I went out faster than I should have averaging a 6:40/mile for the first mile. I had run through Alburtis several times before since I only live one town over, but never along these streets, so I wasn’t sure to expect.

Apparently there is a park with a trail that we ran through that had a decent hill at the end of it, which slowed my pace as I started mile 2. I was still moving pretty good though as we headed downhill and around to the turnaround, but forgot that what comes down must go up, so i started to slow again as we headed for mile 3 .. before I knew it, I saw the finish line already and really turned on the speed. I was flying past people left and right and almost didn’t slow down enough to not knock people over at the finish … but finished with a 21:35.

After quite a long time waiting for results, I found that I came in 41st place and there is the possibility I could have placed in my age group, but the people doing the results seemed terribly inefficient .. I won’t go on about that, I had plenty to say, but won’t.

One thing I did get out of the race is confidence and the realization that maybe I am in better shape than I think I am. I was ready for more after the race, but called it a day since I had my 21 miler to do today … Overall, a good day and a great race result as far as I’m concerned. In looking ahead, I have another 5K planned for the last weekend of the month over at the Lehigh Valley Zoo, I’m considering it another tune-up race. Hopefully i’ll come out of that race as pumped up for racing as I was on Saturday.. because at that point i’ll be heading into the taper already..

I think I wrote a few weeks back about the Rochester marathon being about 10-12 miles of trails. This was something I wasn’t planning for with it being a marathon in a decent sized city. This prompted me to get some long run time on trails, which took me to the Lehigh Canal Park trails which took me from Allentown to Bethlehem (which I actually got off the trails for a bit) and then to Freemansburg and beyond before I turned around and headed back. I did 2 loops through the city of Bethlehem and got a free tour to Musikfest, although there was nobody there except empty stands and an empty stage … oh well.

Anyway, I worked to slowly increase my pace as the run went on, and I did a pretty good job at it, except that I didn’t know what my pace was at certain times due to my Garmin having no signal. I always seem to forget that the only fatal flaw in the Garmin trainer watch is that it needs a clear view to the sky in order to track the distance, and the trails that I was running on were covered mostly with trees. It didn’t slow me down though, I still think I did excellent with my splits despite that one issue.. the best part is that I was able to stop at the park on Sand Island (Bethlehem) and get a drink on the way up, then stop to get a drink on the way back down and fill up my water bottle, it worked out real good.

I have another challenging week coming up, this time I have to drive to Connecticut on Friday to visit family, which means I have another long run coming up very early Friday. I figured that its better to do a long run on my home turf on Friday monring instead of when i’m traveling and in a strange place. I’d say that I skip it for the weekend, but i’m at the point of the training when I really need to get these runs in now. Believe it or not i’m just 4 short weeks away from the first marathon of the season…

The last comment I have (that i’ll elaborate more on in another post tomorrow or Tuesday) was that I used these amazing earbud enhancers from Yurbuds this morning on my run. I’ve never had such a good experience with my mp3 player before while running (especially a long run) … they made the run so much easier not having to worry about them falling out of my ears, but more tomorrow on them…