Thursday, May 12, 2011

Freeze Your Buns #5 - PR

--Again, months late --
The Freeze your Buns #5 was the final in the winter series, and the first race I'd be running with a 'natural' form, and the new kinvaras. I didn't know what to expect, I was a little worried how my calves would hold up. They have been pretty sore the past couple weeks as I worked on the new form. The weather was pretty nice, at least nice enough for shorts, especially compared to the single digit temps of some of the previous Freeze Your Buns races.


With only about 100 racers, its a pretty small group. The course is three loops around the highschool with a 1/2 mile stretch to and from the school. There aren't many hills, other than a couple minor elevation changes by the school, and one bigger hill right in front of the starting line.
Normally I'm not a headphone wearer during races, but this race I really wanted to use every advantage I could get, so I put on my "Speed" playlist. The playlist was about 36 minutes longs, so if I ran out of playlist, I was in bad shape. I even timed my playlist so I would finish on one of my favorite running songs to provide an extra kick at the end.

The race started, and soon I realized something was different. I wasn't in the back of the back. Although I was no where near the front, I was firmly in the back-mid-pack. Often times in smaller races I'm one of the last ones through across the starting line, or close to it.
My new form was doing its thing. It allowed me to keep a pace I never really experienced, while not exerting a ton more energy. The race was uneventful as most are, and I managed to maintain a good pace. I reached the final 1/2 mile stretch, I realized that the song I wanted to finish up on hadn't started yet. I was actually two away which meant I was doing really well on time.. I clicked next button twice on the iphone, and powered through to the end. I was spent by the time I crossed the finish line, but I managed a 5k PR and beat my next best time by 3:29, and met my goal I set for a sub 30:00 5k.
Awesome day of running!