Jan 21

Not Cold Enough To PR

Author: s1n
Category: Runner's Log, Sports

Too Cold Too Hold  Yesterday, I competed in the Too Cold Too Hold race held down on the White Rock Lake course. It was supposed to be a miserable rainy and cold morning according to the weather reports. As it turns out, the meteorologists were wrong yet again. It stopped raining just before the event and continued to be dry until lunch.

  I have been training for the Big D half-marathon in April and it all paid off yesterday. I landed myself a PR with a chip time of 28:08.40. I never count the gun time because I’m not at competition level yet. There weren’t many people there though, so my gun/chip difference was minimal. I think I could have finished even stronger but the thin cold air was giving me trouble. I was paced to finish in about 26 minutes at the half-way turn-around, but lost the energy just before the second mile. I was pretty winded and couldn’t seem to get my breathing under control. Knowing that, I think I’ll add more tempo runs to my training so I can sustain fatigue longer.

  The other big deal was that there were only 3 people running in my age group: 20-24. Since this group is usually very competitive due to its youth, just as much as the experienced 30-34, I was surprised to find out that I finished 1st in my bracket! I also finished 67 out of 144, which isn’t all that bad considering how fast I’d have to be running to finish near the top.

  I never heard my name called before we left, but I apparently have a small award coming my way (tiny snowflake trophy). I called RunOn and they said that they’d track it down for me. When I get it, I’ll be sure to post a picture of it.

  I spent an hour the night before building a playlist for the event so that I would push myself harder the further I went. It worked alright, but I think I over exerted myself turn one of the songs that I don’t think will be making another appearence. Here’s the playlist:

  1. Black Label Society – Life, Birth, Blood, Doom
  2. Rage Against The Machine – Killin’ In The Name Of (Live)
  3. Black Label Society – Battering Ram
  4. Pantera – Cowboys From Hell
  5. Probot – Centuries Of Sin
  6. Hatebreed – Facing What Consumes You
  7. Battered – Derelict
  8. Pantera – New Level (Live)

  I think I will put some more spacing between the faster songs and the tempo songs. The Hatebreed song was too fast, so I’ll replace it with one from their new CD. Maybe I’ll start with some Sabbath so I don’t over pace, but this playlist was a hell of a start to kickin’ ass and taking names at 5K races.

I started downloading the results from my races so that I can archive them. I’ll be placing them on my website as I doubt they’ll remain available by Racing Systems forever.

Too Cold Too Hold 5K (01/20/2007) – Age Groups
Too Cold Too Hold 5K (01/20/2007) – Overall

I even downloaded the stuff from the last race I did:

Too Hot Too Handle 5K (07/22/2006) – Age Groups
Too Hot Too Handle 5K (07/22/2006) – Overall

The next race I have my eyes set on is the St. Paddys Day Dash down Greenville.


2 comments

2 Comments so far

  1. Jokerr January 22nd, 2007 4:54 pm

    Good job man. Keep it up!

  2. s1n January 23rd, 2007 12:03 am

    It really boosts your confidence to see progress. I felt like superman when I learned I won my age group.

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