Wild Turkey 5 Miler 2022

 Ellen, a couple of her friends, and I ran the Wild Turkey Run in Salem on Thursday.

I ran a decent overall pace at 8:18 but I'm more happy that I was able to run a sub 8 minute mile pace on mile 5. I haven't been under an 8 minute pace much lately.

Ellen walk/ran the race and came in at 58 minutes. The weather was cold but little wind and clear, so it was a good day for running.

Harborside Half Marathon

 I ran the Harborside Half Marathon in Newburyport on Sunday. My half marathon PR (1:40:01) is on this course way back in 2015. I certainly didn't challenge that this weekend!

I didn't know what to expect for this race, since I haven't run many races this year. Also, I'm about 20 lbs over my good running weight, which is 180 lbs or lower (on the rare occasions I could get there). Lately I've been barely holding it under 200.

There couldn't be any complaints about the weather. It was threatening to rain, but never really did, staying in the low 50's with just a slight breeze. Perfect. I started out well enough, with an 8:36 mile and I felt strong. Usually I run best without looking at my watch, so I stopped looking at it after mile 1 and just ran a pace I felt comfortable I could sustain over the race. It turns out I immediately slowed down (without realizing it), running over 9 min miles. My quads never really warmed up either; usually I feel them the first couple of miles then they feel good. In this race, they never felt good and they felt a bit thrashed the whole race.

I  finally looked at my watch after mile 9 and was shocked to see the 9:11 on it. I was hoping to run in the low 1:50's, and maybe challenge for a sub 1:50, but with the pace I was at I would be lucky to break 2 hours. Saying "f*** this!" to myself,  I sped up and ran a slightly less than 9 min mile pace for the last 4 miles, enough to get me under 2 hours.

There was a little good news in that I didn't get hurt and my joints held up pretty well.

This Week in Running 6 November 2022

 Total Miles: 20

Tuesday: 20 min row + 40 min elliptical

Wednesday: 6 (including D5K)

Friday: 25 min row + 40 min elliptical

Saturday: 10

Sunday: 20 min row + 30 min elliptical + 4