5K 48 has been run!

I ran race number 48 Wednesday night at Lake Q with the Mystics. We had a good crew show up and very good conditions.

I wore my new Saucony Kinvara 5 shoes and felt pretty good. This was my first race and first run in these shoes and I wasn’t sure what to expect. My “go to shoe” is the Brooks Adrenaline GTS. A nice solid shoe for neutral pronation.

The Kinvara’s are lighter and you can see how they have taken some of the stylish extras out to remove weight. The shoes are still flashy but they definitely have less mass and are much more flexible.

I had a few worries about running on uneven pavement, sand and dirt paths. I’ve never worn such a light shoe before. Everything worked out fine and I was able to run at 100%.

The elusive PR and pleasant surprises

My finish time was 22 minutes even. A course PR but still way off my “official” PR time of 21:11. I ran that PR race in New Market, NH at the Beyond the Rainbow 5K in 2014. This 5K runs the first two miles of the Great Bay Half and then peels off back into town.

My PR race was short! My Garmin had Beyond The Rainbow at 2.92 miles. Club Loco has a lot of experience with races but there is no way I cut corners enough to cut 0.18 miles off of that race. I was happy to see the PR, but the course was short by almost 0.20 miles!. I always think of that race with an asteric in my mind.

If I set aside Beyond The Rainbow, my 5K PR actually happened earlier this year. At the Pine Hill Little League 5K in Lynn, I ran 21:38 and was the first place male. I even got a trophy and ran with bib #1! Just a crazy day. That course was accurate within the standard margin of error.

I picked Pine Hill randomly. I needed a 5K, Lynn is fairly close, price was good and I figured what the heck. I’d never run a 5K in Lynn before.

I guess the moral of the story is that you just never know when you are going to run that PR. You can just show up and not be particularly well-trained and run well. You can also follow a program, be disciplined and run an average race or worse. Life is full of surprises.

I’ve worked hard and been disappointed. In Lynn I was totally shocked. I ran my ass off but when I showed up that morning I never expect to be first and run a PR.

I appreciate that I can run and make myself run really hard. I’m not the fastest guy out there but I run every race as hard as I can, almost always on the edge. Running makes me feel alive and that is something to be grateful for.

Run well my friends!

© 2012 Andrew Nagelin