On the first day of 2011, I ran in the New Year's 5 mile run at Flagpole Hill, which is in White Rock Lake in Dallas Texas. Before I write about the race I want to thank all of you who have followed my blog and answered back with encouraging words this past year. It's what keeps me motivated to keep improving my race times, and my health. After prostate cancer I told God, "I am yours! Whatever You ask of me I will try my best to accomplish." 2010 has been a very blessed year for me personally in the health and fitness department.
To review: I had an article written about me in the Dallas Morning News for last June's Dadfest Prostate Cancer race (thanks to Run-On! and Debbie Fetterman). There was an article about me in Cure magazine's Fall issue, and a video on www.curetoday.com. I won several exercise contests at Fitsteps for Life where I have worked out for free for 2 and 1/2 years. I've been taking free yoga classes every week at Cancer Community of North Texas(formerly Gilda's Club) and attend free and informative meetings and dinners. I attend three free prostate cancer support meetings a month at Baylor, Medical City, and Presbyterian Hospitals. I was honored in September (prostate cancer month) at Baylor for my running. I take free Spanish class on Friday's at Methodist Hospital's Senior Access which also provides free prostate cancer screenings and cholesterol checks once every year. I am very thankful to USMD Prostate Cancer Center in Arlington who make it possible for me to run races almost every week. Thank you
The race sponsors were Run-On!, Baylor Sports Care, Shepps, Davis Creative, and White Rock Racing. If you have seen my race pictures lately you may have noticed that I lost a few pounds. Well, I started a new eating and training plan on November 1st. Before this new plan, I weighed 186 lbs in shorts and no shoes; now I've gone down to 171 lbs. Instead of running on the treadmill and elliptical machine at Fitsteps for Life, I have been running at the park by my home. The result is that I've started running much better and my time has dropped significantly (probably due to the weight loss). I started the year at 180 lbs and gained 5 lbs over time. In 5 years, my total weight loss is 105 lbs, which shows that it takes time to get the weight off, but ultimately we all can do it.
 The race started at 10:00 AM. The course was partially on the street and partially on a trail with a turnaround at the halfway point. I started 4 or 5 rows back along side a few local Dallas Running Club runners: Greg, Sam, Ken, Scott, Wally, Walter, and Ed. I took off fast. After a few turn on the street, we moved on to the trail. When I reached the 1 mile marker my time was 8:31. I tried to keep that pace up as long as I could. Greg Hall, last year's president of the DRC, and others encouraged me as they passed me up. This motivated me to keep running as fast as I could.
 My 2 mile time was 17:20. At this point, runners were coming back from the turnaround. My time at the 3 mile marker was 26:04. Running in last weeks 8K race really prepared me for this 5 mile race I set my pace even faster for this race. My 4 mile time was 34:46. I was getting tired but with only 1 mile to go , I didn't want to slow down. I tried my best to keep up my pace. Finally, I came off the trail and back on to pavement to the finish line. I crossed the line in the time of 43:23 but my official finishing time was 43:37, which was a faster time than the shorter 8K last week which I ran in 44:53.
My line in 55-59 male: Place Bib# Men Overall Overall Pace 8/21 698 90/170 126/343 8:43/m |
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