Monday, May 14, 2007

Nick's First Race


This weekend my son, Nick, ran his first ever race. There was a 1 mile fun run after a 10k I was doing. He got his very own race number and won his first medal. He was really proud of himself. I ran with him which was awesome. Just like his Dad, he has a little trouble with his pacing and went out way too fast and was walking by 1/2 mile. But he did really well and managed to sprint up the hill at the end when lots of others were walking.

For me, the 10k was really a training run. I'm racing one for real next weekend so didn't want to push this one. It was very hilly so I knew if I went for it I'd end up killing myself. Managed to stay under control for the first 3 miles, then started to get into it and sped up. Mile 4 was a big hill (300' climb in under a mile) so I decided to make that the focus of the training run. I overtook a bunch of runners on the hill and caught up with a friend who had gone out real fast at the start (he was leading the first 1/2 mile). Took it easy from the top of the hill until the last 1/4 mile uphill which we sprinted for the crowd. Ended up finishing 15th in around 51 minutes, which is very slow for a 10k but it was all up/down really steep stuff. The winner was around 46 minutes.

Overall it was a big week - 52 miles with a big hilly 16 miler in San Francisco to finish things off Sunday. This week is a low mileage week so it'll be under 40, ending up with a 10k race on Sunday. Hoping to get down to around 42 minutes (6:45) but I'm not sure how bumpy the course is.

No comments: