I knew that the $100 cash prize offered by the Village Fair 5K in League City this morning had done its job when I showed up and saw Gabe Rodriguez and Junior Mitchell in the crowd, joining the regular Clear Lake speedsters like Rudy Rocha, Chris Bittinger, and Sam Rodriguez. Gabe won, Junior took 2nd and Rudy took 3rd. Chris took the masters title. That is one seriously fast group of guys.
As for me, I wasn’t expecting much with the humidity and my past few weeks of slacking off. It’s always the days when I don’t plan to try that I end up doing the best. Funny. I ended up turning in my best 5K in months — 30:39! Sub-10:00 miles, heck yeah! That’s only 1:20 off my PR, so I was very excited. I felt good, and was working hard. My average heart rate was 188, and I did take three 30-second walk breaks between 1.5 and 2.75 miles.
Afterwards I hung around for awards, because I was planning on following the race with a 20+ mile bike ride with the Bay Area Fit folks. I chatted with Buzz, Amy, Ron, and Leah — Buzz and Amy had even ridden their bikes to the race and were going to ride home to get their tri training in.
They started awards. Ron took 3rd among 20-29 males, and Buzz and Amy took 1st and 2nd in the 30-39 females. Leah took 2nd overall and 1st in the 20-29 females (she was the overall female winner at my Yuri’s Night 5K), and then — they called my name! Despite finishing a full 10 minutes after Leah, I finished 2nd in my age group. I got a trophy and everything. Heck yeah! It was very cool that all 5 of us got trophies.
Normally I’d feel a little silly that I ended up with an age group award, since it means that my age group was pretty darn empty. But I was already so happy with my run that I picked up my trophy with a loud whoop. 🙂
Around 9:45 I hit the road with the Bay Area Fit folks for what ended up being a 22.5 mile bike ride. We stayed pretty close to the park where our cars were, and just did two out-and-backs on Highway 96. The sun came out and it got pretty warm, and the wind was pretty strong as well. I took it easy after the hard run, and finished in 1:33, an average of 14.something miles per hour.
One woman I talked to has one of Trek’s women specific design bikes, so I checked it out (though didn’t ride it). I’ve been thinking of trying one and seeing if I like it better than my current ride. On Monday I even sent in my entry for a contest they were having called “Women Who Ride” — they’re picking 5 women to whom they’ll give bikes and equipment, and have them filmed and active online. I’m crossing my fingers that they pick me…
Anyway, it was a good morning for workouts!
5K run – 30:39
22.5 mile bike – 1:33:04