At Four Thousand Feet

Last Thursday I ran my fastest 5k to date – 22:33, 1 minute and 23 seconds faster than my previous time at the Bill Kelley Memorial Race. Perhaps more exciting for me was that I placed 15th out of the 198 runners in my age group. Needless to say, I’m quite pleased with the result. Perhaps I should start to incorporate more speed work into my training. It’d be nice to break 22 minutes the next time around!

As I sit here, procrastinating terribly on packing for another long weekend in the Whites, I find myself oddly driven to write up a brief recap of the 5k race that I participated in yesterday evening. After finishing in 3,643rd place at the 2008 Cigna/Elliot road race (15:31 minute splits, baby), I’m pleased to announce that I have now realized my goal of running a sub-24-minute 5k. Being the sort of individual who thrives on distance challenges – and is severely lacking in the speed department – this marks a huge milestone for me. I cannot tell you the last time I was able to run 3.1 miles at a 7:43 minute pace. Yet somehow I managed to do it last night, and not only that… In some remarkable twist of faith I also ended up coming in 1st place for my age group.

I’ll be facing off with the Cigna/Elliot 5k again on August 13th. This time around, I’m hoping to break 23:30. We shall see…