The Summer Kickoff 5K has chip timing, but I can’t figure out where the chip times are actually displayed (which makes me wonder why they have chip timing if they don’t appear to use it). Anyway, if you look up my result from yesterday you’ll see a time about 20 seconds slower than I actually was. This is important, because my actual time was 30:57 — I squeaked in just under 31 minutes for the second week in a row!
After last week’s great run at the Village Fair 5K, I felt a lot of (totally self-induced) pressure to repeat the performance this week. I really hope to be able to keep running strong throughout the summer. “Strong” is relative, of course, because who can really run their best during a Houston summer with all that heat and humidity — but I hope to suffer through the heat enough to make me come out reasonably well in the fall.
Anyway, I was hoping to repeat or slightly improve my 30:39 from last week, but I had some doubts about my ability to do that. The temperature yesterday morning wasn’t much worse — hovering in the upper 70s with moderate humidity — but last week’s race was almost 100% shaded. The Summer Kickoff Run? 100% under the sun. It’s hot. And bright. And hot.
After chatting with friends and coworkers before the start, I decided that it’d be worse to take it easy and wonder if I could’ve run well than it would be to just start out fast and see if I could maintain. So I started at a brisk pace, following Lucie and her friend. Around the half mile point, my Gilruth trail buddy David pulled up beside me to chat. I told him I wouldn’t be able to talk much today because I was gonna push pretty hard! He ran with me through the first mile and then went on ahead (he’s faster). I passed mile 1 in 9:43 and wondered how much longer I could maintain it. It was hot.
The turnaround point on South Shore Boulevard seemed to never arrive, and when I’d finally made the turn to head back to the high school, I knew I wouldn’t be able to maintain the pace. I took one 30-second walk break — it wasn’t so much of a choice as it was the fact that my legs just slowed to a walk on their own. I passed mile 2 in 9:58.
I walked three more times in the last mile. Looking at the data after the race (ah, I love my Garmin), I noticed that my walk breaks corresponded to the times my heart rate got close to 200. My average for the race was 190 — which doesn’t worry me; my heart rate is always high, and even on easy runs I average in the 170s. But if you look at the graph of my heart rate from yesterday, each time it rose to 198 or 199, I’d walk. I didn’t do that intentionally — in fact, I barely looked at my watch during the race. Seems like 200 is that magic “ok, now you’re really working harder than I can keep up with” number for me. The only time my heart rate finally did rise above 200 was in the last tenth of a mile during my sprint to the finish — and I spent the first minute after crossing the line gasping for air.
Interesting. I passed mile 3, including my little walk breaks, in 10:24, and the last tenth in 54 seconds. I was slower than last week, but I’m still very happy to be under 31 minutes since the course was more exposed.
After the race I hung out and chatted for a while. I was on my way back to my car, but then Sam walked up with a group of On The Run guys; they’d just finished their cooldown. I decided to walk back over with Sam and listen to the awards. I was 6th in my age group, but Sam was 2nd in his so he got a medal. He ran faster than last week, despite the heat — under 18 minutes, or some crazy fast time.
All in all it was a fun race. Hot. But fun. It’s getting to be the time of year where every race I run leaves me feeling overheated for the rest of the day. I also usually end up with a delayed-onset headache that I think is related to the heat as well. By noon I needed some Advil. At 2:00 my face still felt flushed. I hate the heat; why do I live in Houston again??
Up next weekend: Silverlake Sprint Triathlon – 400 yard swim, 10 mile bike, 3 mile run.
