Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Alumni 5k recap and puppies

Yesterday was the 2nd Annual St. Thomas Alumni 5k, held at Pike Island in St. Paul. The race is  used as a time trial for the St. Thomas women's team. I use the race to make sure that I can still beat at least a few college runners.

So, Pike Island is part of Fort Snelling State Park. There are two trails (at least two that I am familiar with): an inner loop which is about one mile, and an outer loop, which is about three miles. My college coaches took our team down there to run workouts, and it's actually a pretty popular place for a lot of local runners. The trails are wide, unpaved, and scenic.

In case you are curious:

http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/maps/state_parks/spk00154_summer.pdf

Anyway. Last year I ran 21:02. So my goal on Saturday was just to beat that time. Even though I had been doing track work earlier in the summer, my butt/hip pain, combined with my general hatred of summer running, meant my recent training has been lackluster. But I thought I could beat at least a couple of the girls on the team!!!

The race is three laps of the one mile loop. I started towards the back of the pack and felt pretty comfortable for the first mile (6:27). I focused on maintaining my pace over the second lap and still passed two groups (mile split: mystery). When I started the third loop I was definitely getting tired but still managed to hang onto my pace, and to two current runners. Try as I might, I could not catch them, but ran 20:22- 40 seconds faster than last year! So that is a good sign

One thing that I really enjoyed about the alumni race this year was meeting some of the older alumni. About four graduates from the late 80s/early 90s showed up, and it was so cool meeting them. They ran the same routes, completed many of the same workouts, and had the same experiences from road trips with Coach (in general- he is a terrible driver).

Accidental artsy photo from after the race- me & Meg


Today Meg and I met for a workout. We had wanted to do a track workout but the football team was on the field and spilling into lane 1, and I have heard stories about the coach yelling at runners using the track if his team was practicing (even if the runners were college athletes at the school...really nice, right). So, we did a fartlek on the river road. We warmed up for about 15 minutes and then did 10 x 1 min hard, 1 min easy, followed by a one mile cool down. It was a nice, quick, workout, and my legs felt great. Tomorrow I'm planning on going 7 miles, Thursday I'm planning on 5, Friday 6, and Saturday- maybe a 10k, maybe a long run. I haven't decided.

Not running related:

I see you! My whole body fits in this bubble!!
Meg and her husband got a puppy!! That's him in the pet peek on Saturday. He and Rodgy are great pals and he is so cute!!!