it was great to get back to the norwalk summer series this weekend. these are some of my favorite races, and were a staple of my summer race calendar. but in recent years i had to miss many of them because of conflicts with the ultras that seemed to take over my schedule! the last time i ran the 3 miler was in 2006 (18:38). what made the return to the summers series kick-off even more special was having katie run it as well (that too was a last minute switch from the her plan to run the "cook your buns" 3 miler the night before)!
when we got there, i saw john and kate (who had run "cook your buns" the night before), emmy (the birthday girl), don (the race director) and a lot more friends: dawn, rob, roy, evan, ikuko, sean, sherry, jeanette, brian, rob i., monica, luis, just to name a few! most were surprised to see katie there for the race! up until the last minute i thought about running the race with her. but i opted to run the race and then double back and run the last mile with her. her goal was to finish under 30 minutes and my goal was a sub-20 finish.
once the race was underway, it wasn't too far into the first mile before i remembered how hilly the course was! luckily, it was only a 3 mile race! my first mile was too fast at 6:15, and i knew it couldn't maintain that pace. but then i slowed down too much for the second, with a 6:39, for a two mile split of 12:54. i picked it up for the last one, and ran a 6:29 to finish in 19:23, a 6:28 pace. i turned right around, made a quick stop to grab my camera from the car, and went to find katie.
she had passed the 2 mile mark, with about 3/4 of mile left to go when i reached her. she was looking good so i ran a bit in front to take some pictures of her on the course. she crossed the finish in 29:58 - just under her 30 minute target! woo hoo! afterwards, we socialized while don compiled and posted the race results. she came in first in her age group! now if i can only get her to run the second, 5 mile, race in the series :D
here are my race photos.
2 comments:
I just ran a 5k with a very similar time, though maybe not as hilly a course. I'd never broken 20 minutes before, but I went vegetarian a few months ago and I've been running like a champ since. Do you run marathons? Just wondering what kind of times someone with about the same 5k ability can expect over 26.2... really hoping to get to Boston next year!
It's amazing how much Katie has grown since I started seeing pictures of her 3 years ago. Glad you both reached your goal. You still have the speed even after all the long distance running you do. Great.
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