PBR

Have not had much to say as of late.  Training has been fairly cut and dry.  Starting to get a little cabin fever.  Need some warm weather.  Need to get the bike out on the road.  Need to start racing, mix things up some.

To that end, ran the Point Bock Run on Saturday.  Fourth time I've done this race in the last 5-years.  PR'd the distance each time.  Of course the first time I ran it was the first time I ever ran 5-miles, so it isn't that much of an accomplishment.

This year I honestly didn't know what to expect.  I've been running quite a bit, but haven't done any speed work at all, no intervals, no tempo runs.  Have just gone out and ran.  Only look at the Garmin to know when it's time to turn around or stop.  No pace concerns, goals, etc.

Enter race day.  It's cold, not terribly so, but colder than it has been, maybe 30 degrees F.  But winds gusting to 18ish mph.  Wade and I spent about an hour in the car prerace watching snow blow off the roof of a building in front of us.  Overcast, no sun, but the course was clear of ice, so no complaints there.

With all that said, I went out with the goal to break my 2010 PR of 39:20, a 7:52 pace.  Go out fast, if I blow up, I blow up.

First mile ended up in the 7:20's.  Little fast, but ok.  Wasn't feeling awful.  I don't recall the time at the second mile, or the turn around, but I do recall passing mile 3 at 23:00 flat, according to the course volunteer stationed there.

Odd thing is, I was able to calculate I had ran the first three at exactly a 7:40 pace.  Normally if I run hard, simple arithmetic completely eludes me.  Apparently I wasn't running hard enough.  I tried to pick it up in the fourth mile, but the legs weren't having anything to do with it.  I passed mile 4 at 30:45, again according to the course volunteer.

Some more quick math told be I had an outside shot of breaking 38 minutes.  Wasn't to be.  Legs just didn't have any more get up and go.  Last mile was again in the 7:20's.

Final time of 38:03, split at the turn around of 19:00.  Not sure why, but not breaking 38 was very disappointing.  Although it was the only even vaguely disappointing aspect of the race.

The stats.

286/1869 overall
242/913 men
37/125 age group

Some other interesting bits:
only 44 women beat me, but I also got beat by:
1  (of 6) 65-69 year old man (by one second), and
10 (of 24) boys 15 years old or less.

If I would have noticed the old dude I most certainly would have attempted to run him down.  But either way, more power too him.  I can only hope to be out there competing in another 25 years.

10K coming up in a couple weeks at the Shamrock Shuffle.  Then the Trailbreaker Half Marathon at the end of the month.  Hopefully a couple of more PR's.  We shall see.

And I'll work on getting a February summary together, and posting on a more regular basis.