Run The Woodlands #126 5K Race Report
The post that you are reading is a re-write! If you are trying to highlight the entire entry so that you can cut-and-paste it into Word or Notepad, there is a set of keystrokes that causes you to lose it. I’ve done this too many times! Therefore this entry was done in Microsoft Word first!
Now … if it rains today like it did for Noah in biblical times, there is a reason why!
Upon returning from Bally’s last night and before we sat down to watch the MyMarathonDVD that I purchased from the Marine Corps Marathon (which featured clips of me actually running), I suggested to my wife, Gena, and my daughter, Waverly, that they should attempt the Run The Woodlands 5K in the morning with me.
Gena has been walking with a friend of ours from where we go to church at, North Park Baptist Church. They’ll do approximately three miles at a time and usually late at night.
Now it might not have been the best advice that I’ve ever given to anybody; however, they both accepted the challenge. It was also going to be a morning in which a good friend, Kenny Gibson from Montgomery, was making his road racing debut.
We got there in plenty of time to warmup and take on some additional liquid as the sun was coming out and it was very humid.
Today’s race turned out to be the third largest turnout ever in the history of the Run The Woodlands 5K Series with 67 runners. I won’t tell you who finished last, but it wasn’t me (as I’m the series record holder for last place finishers.). The upswing in participants is coming from Luke’s Locker’s involvement in the event as they use the Series for their Quick Beat running program participants.
I had no idea what to expect since I had only worked out once during the week and hadn’t run at all. Therefore, I was not disappointed at all with my watch time of 29:28.76.
Waverly, who hadn’t done much of anything since basketball season ended four weeks ago, covered the 3.1 miles in 44:16.00 while Gena pushed ahead a little bit sooner. (I had run out to help them in. I pushed Waverly in the last almost three minutes. She missed out on the $5 that I promised her if she beat her mother.)
Because of the humidity, I could tell that it was going to be a rough morning for me. Even though I had taken in about two liters of fluid in the eight hours up to race time, I had a parched throat the entire time. My mile splits were as follows:
Mile 1 – 9:01.18
Mile 2 – 9:35.62 (18:36.80)
Mile 3 – 9:57.20 (28:34.00)
Last .1 – 0:54.76 (29:28.76)
In the first mile I passed a couple of runners, but was eventually caught there or shortly there after by Trisha Blackburn of Pearland and two other female runners. One of them was wearing a Team in Training mentor shirt (at least that is what it said as she went by). I was, but wasn’t surprised at the 9:01.18 clocking at mile 1.
I could feel that I was pushing myself, but I wasn’t sure how fast I really was going because I was getting a burn in my legs from not having run as much this past week.
I walked twice in mile 2 for no more than about 32-34 steps and turned in a 9:35.62 mile. I could tell as I looked at my watch that I was going to have a slide from mile 1 to mile 2, but I was hoping that it wasn’t going to be that much. It was a slide of 34 seconds, but it could have been a lot worse.
After mile 1, I started to see my friend, Kenny Gibson. He had discussed before the race that it was going to be interesting on how he reined in his competitive juices versus what he knew he was able to do at this point. (Kenny is a competitor at whatever he does: softball, basketball or golf. He is like our former pastor’s son, Tommy Gross, and would strive to win at Tiddly Winks.) He was off quite a bit ahead in the distance during mile 1 and I thought to myself, “He’s going out too fast.”
Close to mile 2, I got my first glimpse of him and as I got to the mile 2.1-2.2 area, I thought that I might have the opportunity to catch him. This also occurred near the 2.6-mile point. But as I needed to take a 30-to-40 step walk, he was getting ready to run again (after walking a bit too).
He ended up finishing ahead of all three women that passed me in just under 28:30. Not bad for a first time effort; however, I know that he is capable of much more.
My wife said that she would have done better if she had not had to have waited up for Waverly. Waverly just doesn’t completely have the “want to”, but that’s OK. She did admirably, I think, to click off a 44:16.00 for being a bigger framed 9-year-old who hadn’t run much at all since the end of basketball season.
Bottom line: I’ll take the 29:28.76 on a day like today after not having really run hard at all since the Bayou City Classic 10K two weeks ago.
Notes: It was good to see a lot of the Run The Woodlands 5K regulars that were in attendance: Tom McDonough (36th race), Jeff Westergren (49th), Ann Leoni (73rd of 126 races), Jim Harrington (44th) and Gary and Denise Van Kuiken. Ann told me that a group of them were going to do something nice for event founder Don Drewniak and his wife, Dolores. I told her that I wanted to be a part of that. Others of the “more than 20 race club” that were in attendance included myself (21st), Anne Westfall (37th) and Jon Freeman (33rd). The 24 members who have run 20 or more races have accounted for 24.5% of all races run.
I got a chance to visit with Stan Timmer of Luke’s Locker, who will be the point person for the event when Don and his wife move to Delaware. I explained to him that when I bought my first real pair of running shoes from Luke’s in November 2003 that he gave me a business card with manager Bert Gulledge on it. I told him that I’ve been calling him “Bert” ever since. Stan, Mike Lucas, and Susie Schreiber are all super people.
I also caught up with Gary Van Kuiken of The Woodlands who continues his quest to run marathons in 50 states. Gary ran marathons on back-to-back days in January when he did the Texas Marathon in Kingwood in 4:07:29 and then the next day, in Mobile, Alabama, he ran the First Light Marathon in 4:27:00.
Last weekend, Gary was in Virginia and New Jersey and ran the Shamrock Sportsfest Marathon and Ocean Drive Marathon in Virginia Beach and Cape May County, respectively. His times of 3:59:02 and 4:13:34 were 22 combined minutes better than his back-to-back effort in January. At the end of April, Gary will travel to Louisville, Kentucky on Saturday, April 30th to do the Meijer Kentucky Derby Festival Marathon and then drive north to Cincinnati on Sunday, May 1st to run the Flying Pig Marathon.
Now … if it rains today like it did for Noah in biblical times, there is a reason why!
Upon returning from Bally’s last night and before we sat down to watch the MyMarathonDVD that I purchased from the Marine Corps Marathon (which featured clips of me actually running), I suggested to my wife, Gena, and my daughter, Waverly, that they should attempt the Run The Woodlands 5K in the morning with me.
Gena has been walking with a friend of ours from where we go to church at, North Park Baptist Church. They’ll do approximately three miles at a time and usually late at night.
Now it might not have been the best advice that I’ve ever given to anybody; however, they both accepted the challenge. It was also going to be a morning in which a good friend, Kenny Gibson from Montgomery, was making his road racing debut.
We got there in plenty of time to warmup and take on some additional liquid as the sun was coming out and it was very humid.
Today’s race turned out to be the third largest turnout ever in the history of the Run The Woodlands 5K Series with 67 runners. I won’t tell you who finished last, but it wasn’t me (as I’m the series record holder for last place finishers.). The upswing in participants is coming from Luke’s Locker’s involvement in the event as they use the Series for their Quick Beat running program participants.
I had no idea what to expect since I had only worked out once during the week and hadn’t run at all. Therefore, I was not disappointed at all with my watch time of 29:28.76.
Waverly, who hadn’t done much of anything since basketball season ended four weeks ago, covered the 3.1 miles in 44:16.00 while Gena pushed ahead a little bit sooner. (I had run out to help them in. I pushed Waverly in the last almost three minutes. She missed out on the $5 that I promised her if she beat her mother.)
Because of the humidity, I could tell that it was going to be a rough morning for me. Even though I had taken in about two liters of fluid in the eight hours up to race time, I had a parched throat the entire time. My mile splits were as follows:
Mile 1 – 9:01.18
Mile 2 – 9:35.62 (18:36.80)
Mile 3 – 9:57.20 (28:34.00)
Last .1 – 0:54.76 (29:28.76)
In the first mile I passed a couple of runners, but was eventually caught there or shortly there after by Trisha Blackburn of Pearland and two other female runners. One of them was wearing a Team in Training mentor shirt (at least that is what it said as she went by). I was, but wasn’t surprised at the 9:01.18 clocking at mile 1.
I could feel that I was pushing myself, but I wasn’t sure how fast I really was going because I was getting a burn in my legs from not having run as much this past week.
I walked twice in mile 2 for no more than about 32-34 steps and turned in a 9:35.62 mile. I could tell as I looked at my watch that I was going to have a slide from mile 1 to mile 2, but I was hoping that it wasn’t going to be that much. It was a slide of 34 seconds, but it could have been a lot worse.
After mile 1, I started to see my friend, Kenny Gibson. He had discussed before the race that it was going to be interesting on how he reined in his competitive juices versus what he knew he was able to do at this point. (Kenny is a competitor at whatever he does: softball, basketball or golf. He is like our former pastor’s son, Tommy Gross, and would strive to win at Tiddly Winks.) He was off quite a bit ahead in the distance during mile 1 and I thought to myself, “He’s going out too fast.”
Close to mile 2, I got my first glimpse of him and as I got to the mile 2.1-2.2 area, I thought that I might have the opportunity to catch him. This also occurred near the 2.6-mile point. But as I needed to take a 30-to-40 step walk, he was getting ready to run again (after walking a bit too).
He ended up finishing ahead of all three women that passed me in just under 28:30. Not bad for a first time effort; however, I know that he is capable of much more.
My wife said that she would have done better if she had not had to have waited up for Waverly. Waverly just doesn’t completely have the “want to”, but that’s OK. She did admirably, I think, to click off a 44:16.00 for being a bigger framed 9-year-old who hadn’t run much at all since the end of basketball season.
Bottom line: I’ll take the 29:28.76 on a day like today after not having really run hard at all since the Bayou City Classic 10K two weeks ago.
Notes: It was good to see a lot of the Run The Woodlands 5K regulars that were in attendance: Tom McDonough (36th race), Jeff Westergren (49th), Ann Leoni (73rd of 126 races), Jim Harrington (44th) and Gary and Denise Van Kuiken. Ann told me that a group of them were going to do something nice for event founder Don Drewniak and his wife, Dolores. I told her that I wanted to be a part of that. Others of the “more than 20 race club” that were in attendance included myself (21st), Anne Westfall (37th) and Jon Freeman (33rd). The 24 members who have run 20 or more races have accounted for 24.5% of all races run.
I got a chance to visit with Stan Timmer of Luke’s Locker, who will be the point person for the event when Don and his wife move to Delaware. I explained to him that when I bought my first real pair of running shoes from Luke’s in November 2003 that he gave me a business card with manager Bert Gulledge on it. I told him that I’ve been calling him “Bert” ever since. Stan, Mike Lucas, and Susie Schreiber are all super people.
I also caught up with Gary Van Kuiken of The Woodlands who continues his quest to run marathons in 50 states. Gary ran marathons on back-to-back days in January when he did the Texas Marathon in Kingwood in 4:07:29 and then the next day, in Mobile, Alabama, he ran the First Light Marathon in 4:27:00.
Last weekend, Gary was in Virginia and New Jersey and ran the Shamrock Sportsfest Marathon and Ocean Drive Marathon in Virginia Beach and Cape May County, respectively. His times of 3:59:02 and 4:13:34 were 22 combined minutes better than his back-to-back effort in January. At the end of April, Gary will travel to Louisville, Kentucky on Saturday, April 30th to do the Meijer Kentucky Derby Festival Marathon and then drive north to Cincinnati on Sunday, May 1st to run the Flying Pig Marathon.
posted by WalkSports.com | 11:44 AM
2 Comments:
44:16.00 Is pretty good! I think that is close to my time for my first race a few months ago. Of course I'm almost 30 and more that a little chubby. But heck, I think that's darn good for Waverly.
She did good. Actually, she was three seconds faster. I hit my watch when she crossed the line, but I hit the split button instead of the stop button. So her time was actually 44:13.56. For not doing anything at all prior, that's good. If she worked at it, she could do a lot more BUT it isn't what she wants right now and that's OK. She does great in school!
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