A New International 5K PR on PR Saturday!

For me, that is! And, well, yes, it was my first international race -- period!

I have to count the PR's when I can as many of the Houston Running Bloggers nailed PR's at today's Bellaire Trolley Run 5K. (I'm not complaining, but rather I would say that I shouldn't complain as I have recent marathon and half marathon PR's to my credit.)

So before I go any farther let me congratulate fellow Bloggers - Holden Choi (24:44.81, who got his at Run The Woodlands #151 today with Rick Cook pacing him), June Vidrine (32:56.5, way to crack 33 minutes), Joe Carey (22:33.8), Steve Bezner (22:26.2), Jessica Alexander (24:21.7, 7th AG), Erin Foley (19:23.5, 2nd in AG) and Lisa Leese (24:20.8, 6th in AG). (Jennifer Kim might have scored a PR with a 31:30.7.)

As they would say here up north, "Great running, eh?"

I signed up for the Spring Forward 5K that was put on this morning by the Vancouver Falcons Athletic Club and held in one of the great parks in the world, Stanley Park. (The club advertised it as the "your best training run" for the upcoming Vancouver Sun Run 10K, which will be held in two weeks and has 45,367 runners registered so far.

Races here traditionally start a little later here (today's race started at 9 a.m.) and packet pickup was held by what was known in the Park as the Lumberman's Arch. I was told that the race would start 600 meters down the seawall - a little bit of a different reference to hear (both meters and seawall).

It was also interesting to see singlets and shirts for the different clubs in this area as opposed to our own Al Lawrence Running Club, Bayou City Road Runners or Houston Striders. Today I saw the Vancouver Falcons, of course, the Lions Gate Road Runners as well as Kajak's Track and Field Club from nearby Richmond. (There were a couple of others that I can't seem to recall.)

This is the first time that I've ever run to a race! Being in and close to the city, it is kind of useless to have a car and to pay to park when you can walk or run there. I've estimated that I'm probably walking to and from public transportation each day approximately 2 miles.

It was almost 2.9 miles from the apartment that I'm in to the packet pickup location (and no I didn't time it.) I wondered how it would or wouldn't affect me as I do not normally warm up that far before a race of any kind. And actually I don't really think it did at all!

The course has three (3) uphills (or inclines) in it and they were all in the first two kilometers, which oddly enough were my fastest ones (opposed to the fact that I go out too fast).

My kilometer splits were as follows:

Kilometer 1 -- 5:32.03
Kilometer 2 -- 5:34.38
Kilometer 3 -- 5:56.03
Kilometer 4 -- 6:03.84
Kilometer 5 -- 5:52.29

Overall 5K -- 29:17.52

The one thing about having kilometer splits is that you can more quickly evaluate your pace.

The first 600 meters (six tenths of a mile) were along the seawall before we took a left at the Lumberman's Arch and made a short uphill climb. As the hill flattened out, the first kilometer marking came up and I saw 5:50.98 show up on my watch and I was thinking "5 times 6 equals 30, ugh!" I forgot about taking out the difference that it took me to get across the line.

The initial part of the second kilometer was downhill before we took a right. I remembered the training tip that I posted yesterday and I tried to pick up the number of foot strikes. I was going faster and pulled away from a number of women who were close to me.

After making the right-hand turn, there was an incline that led to crossing a small bridge before going a short distance and making a turnaround. (From here, the rest of the race was where I had run on Thursday morning in the Park.) We turnaround, went under the bridge to the right and then approached the 2K mark. Of course, my watch flashed 11:44.31 and I'm thinking that I should be OK for beating 30 minutes.

Somewhere past a point that we made a little bit of a left-hand turn, there was a young lady who was shorter and was dressed in a black running outfit that passed me. All I could think about was DirtRunner's Rocky Raccoon 50K race report and getting "chicked." (Believe me, I get "chicked" every single race by lots of women who are just plain faster! So again, I'm not complaining.)

As you can see in the other three (3) kilometer splits, I started to slow down, which surprised me because it was flat. Oh well!

For parts of the third and fourth kilometer, the female runner dressed in black and another woman in a white outfit stretched their advantage out a few feet. Just after we passed one of the tips of the park on the seawall (and before the 4K mark), another lady passed me.

Shortly after she did, I regained the advantage within about 10 seconds and ran through the 4K mark at 23:44.18. I'm once again doing the math and I'm thinking to myself "under 30 minutes is easy"; however, as I passed the start line, I thought, "Wait, that only gets me to mile 3 and then I have another tenth of a mile." Then I remembered, "It's kilometers dummy! Maintain and you've got it made!"

With the inlet and Lions' Gate Bridge off to the right and the finish line in sight about 300 meters away, I thought that I had enough gas left in the tank -- despite not putting anything but water in it since last night -- to overtake the girl in black that passed me. And within the last tenth of a mile, I caught her!

I felt I ran pretty well given that I've been doing a lot of longer races this spring.

So I'll take the 29:17 and mark it down as a good, solid effort, but one to attempt to improve upon. On the way back to the apartment, I called home (as Waverly was working on the RTW results for today), left a message for DirtRunner and talked to Len Hill of the Seven Hills Running Club, who was doing a story on me for the club newsletter.