the ultimate humiliation
Aug. 9th, 2009 11:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ilanaramaSo, I ran a 5K on Friday night.
Before I whine (and I am going to whine, so consider this a Whine Warning) I feel obliged to acknowledge that most of you reading this are not competitive runners. Some of you have run 5Ks and would be very happy indeed to run them as fast as I do. And yes, my time is a course PR for me. So I should not complain. But complain I shall.
I plugged the time of my awesome half-marathon into the McMillan calculator (Warning: the site plays music but it goes away when you hit "calculate") and it told me that my equivalent performance in a 5K would be 22:34. Now, I had run this particular course twice before, both times around 24:25, and I am far more of an endurance runner than a speed runner, and some recent workouts had confirmed for me that there was no way I could possibly keep a 7:16 per mile pace going, so I wasn't really aiming at that. But I thought a 23:30 would be reasonable, and my pixie dust goal was to break 23 minutes.
5Ks are popular because most people who are capable of walking can usually finish them in an hour or so, and most beginning runners can run them continuously, as a first race. To really race them well, though, means running at basically top speed, just sub-barfing. I don't enjoy running 5Ks. It's too painful.
I did not break 23 minutes. I barely broke 24, coming in at 23:57, miserable and breathless, and passed by another woman in the last 100 yards. But worst of all, I was beaten by a woman pushing two kids in a double stroller. She came in 4th, with the beautifully symmetric time of 22:22 (which is why I remembered it). I came in 7th.
Strollered by a doublewide. I am mortified.
Before I whine (and I am going to whine, so consider this a Whine Warning) I feel obliged to acknowledge that most of you reading this are not competitive runners. Some of you have run 5Ks and would be very happy indeed to run them as fast as I do. And yes, my time is a course PR for me. So I should not complain. But complain I shall.
I plugged the time of my awesome half-marathon into the McMillan calculator (Warning: the site plays music but it goes away when you hit "calculate") and it told me that my equivalent performance in a 5K would be 22:34. Now, I had run this particular course twice before, both times around 24:25, and I am far more of an endurance runner than a speed runner, and some recent workouts had confirmed for me that there was no way I could possibly keep a 7:16 per mile pace going, so I wasn't really aiming at that. But I thought a 23:30 would be reasonable, and my pixie dust goal was to break 23 minutes.
5Ks are popular because most people who are capable of walking can usually finish them in an hour or so, and most beginning runners can run them continuously, as a first race. To really race them well, though, means running at basically top speed, just sub-barfing. I don't enjoy running 5Ks. It's too painful.
I did not break 23 minutes. I barely broke 24, coming in at 23:57, miserable and breathless, and passed by another woman in the last 100 yards. But worst of all, I was beaten by a woman pushing two kids in a double stroller. She came in 4th, with the beautifully symmetric time of 22:22 (which is why I remembered it). I came in 7th.
Strollered by a doublewide. I am mortified.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-09 05:57 pm (UTC)I am much, much better at going uphill any time I haven't got (1) a small child or (2) 30 lbs. of groceries hanging off the back of the bike....;>
(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-09 10:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-09 10:10 pm (UTC)