<- Left Turns Only!

This past Saturday I purchased a new bike - new to me at least. A 2006 Specialized Allez Pro that I bought from a friend and fellow speedskater. It was used lightly last summer but it is still in excellent condition. It’s the first true road bike that I’ve owned. We went out for a test ride on Saturday, about 20-25 miles… let me just say that you should definitely own biking shorts if you are going to ride a road bike for any considerable amount of time!

Here is a pic of the new toy:

The road trip required to pick-up my new toy (from Milwaukee) was the true adventure of my weekend. On my way back to Chicago the right rear tire of my jeep decided it no longer wanted to remain intact. This is what it now looks like:

I managed to pull off to the side of the road, and change the tire. But as I continued on my trip, this occurred:

The end result was:

That would be a tow truck, dropping off my jeep. Luckily I broke down close to my office and only needed to get towed a few miles. Thankfully, I was able to get a hold of another fellow speedskater, and he kindly gave me a ride to the Metra station. Which reminds me - if you haven’t rode a Metra train to Chicago at 11 on a Saturday night, let me just tell you… there’s an interesting crowd on the train at that hour.

So on Sunday, post bike-jeep-tow-train Saturday, and now sans a vehicle, there was no 5k racing. The sub-20 attempt will have to wait until this weekend… although, I didn’t have a race in mind for this weekend, so I’ll have to see what I can find.

…Mother Nature won.

This past Sunday I ran my third 5K of the spring/summer (Loop the Loop for Kids 5K - benefiting Children’s Memorial Hospital).  Now, for those of you that know me, or have been reading along on my blog for awhile, you are aware of the fact that I am not a morning person.  So… you would think that a race with a 9am starting time plays to my advantage. 

Unfortunately, Mother Nature had other plans for the race this weekend, as it was 90+ degrees on Sunday.  I don’t think the course layout helped me out too much either - as we crossed over six bridges, each one having a decent incline leading up to it.  Throw in the fact that the course took us out of the Loop area, and back, on streets that run East-West… which meant we were running in the direct sunlight… and you get the resulting feeling that I had on Sunday morning - whipped!  Mainly in the last mile, as I did my first mile in 6:15, followed by a 6:45… the last mile was brutal, and I think I ran it in around 7:45… heat-induced-B-O-N-K.

I ended up finishing in 21:26, which was good enough for 17th overall (out of 528) and 2nd in my age group (out of 39).  There were about 80 ghost runners in the race, or at least it looked that way when you view the bottom of the results page:

http://www.chicagoevents.com/race-results.cfm

This week brings another 5K on Sunday.  I’m hoping for a flat course, less heat, and some shade!  With a high of 82 in the forecast, maybe this one will bring out the sub-20 minute race I was hoping for last week!

Saturday morning I ran my second 5k of the summer.  The pace was a little better this time, as I ran the first mile in 6:15, as opposed to the 5:20 that I logged last week.  The course had a few long gradual hills, so the end result was that I finished 9 seconds slower than last week.  That small difference (the slight inclines of suburbia versus the relatively flat downtown landscape) reminded me that I need to get more hill running in.  Especially if I am expecting to log a solid time in the Napa-to-Sonoma race in July.  I think there may be a hill or two there. 

Anyway, I ended up finishing the race in 20:35.  Overall I was 40th out of 401, and in my age group I finished 2nd out of 19 (my first medal in a 5k!).  Here is a link to the results:

http://www.cararuns.org/race_results/results07/raceforthestarsall.html

Sunday night was our team dryland workout, to finish off a peak training week.  The bulk of the workout was three low walk pyramids.  I may have explained low walks before, but for those that aren’t familiar - imagine doing lunges, with your back flat, except instead of returning to the starting position you lunge forward onto the other foot.  It’s loads of fun!     We were doing low walks pyramids for the majority of our workout.  70 minutes of continuous movement. 

Note - pyramid workouts start low, peak, then come down again.  Example, exercise for 1 min, 2, 3, 2, 1 is a pyramid set.  For our low walk pyramids, we would do 10 seconds of low walks followed by 10 seconds of jogging, all done around a small set of cones set up like a track/oval.  We would do 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 50, 40, 30, 20, 10 seconds - for the first and third sets.  Low walk 10, Jog 10, Low walk 20, Jog 20, etc….  The middle set was 15, 30, 45, 60, 75, 90, 75, 60, 45, 30, 15.  By the end - YOU’RE TIRED!

In other news, the Rocket returned on Saturday and the Yanks finished off the Pirates.  For those keeping track, the next great Red Sox collapse is in full swing.  The Yanks have trimmed the lead from 14 1/2 games to 9 1/2… Bucky is lurking! 

Well, with a little motivation, a little self-discipline (aka I stayed home on Saturday night), and a properly set alarm clock (I have issues with alarms)… I managed to run my first 5k of the season on Sunday morning.

My goal was to finish in under 22 minutes, in order to set a reasonable time for me to build on the rest of the summer.  I haven’t been running very hard during my training runs thus far - opting for long, slower jogs.  I don’t keep track of mileage, instead I run for time and judge the effort by how my breathing is going. 

Sunday was a decent morning to run, as far as the temperature went.  It was a bit humid, but with cooler temps it didn’t seem that bad.  I did wake up initially at 4am, to hear the thundering rainstorm that was taking place.  That didn’t exactly help with my enthusiasm to get out of bed in two hours to go running.  Fortunately, the rain stopped right after I got in the car to drive down to the race. 

As for the race itself, I finished in 20:26.  42nd overall (out of 1132), 7th in my age group (out of 99). 

Entire results (for the 5k and 10k) are posted here.

I started out a little too fast, as I tried to keep the lead group in my sight for the first mile… which resulted in a 5:20 first mile.  I definitely have not been training hard enough to run 5:20s.   I dialed it back a bit during the second mile, anticipating some form of collapse if I kept going at a 5:20 pace.  At the end of the race I probably could have shaved a few more seconds off of my time if the course layout was set up better, but the finish line was obscured from view until you were about 50m away from it.  End result being that I didn’t get much of a sprint through the finish area.  Usually I’ll try to sprint the last quarter mile or so… at races where you can see the finish line approaching, that is. 

Anyway, 20:26 is the baseline.  Next race is this weekend…. and for purely superstitious reasons, I will not discuss it any further here until after I finish.