This week I chose to run in the St. Paddy's Day Dash Down Greenville 5K on Saturday March 12, 2011 at Central Market on Lovers Lane and Greenville Avenue in Dallas, Texas. The event was presented by Run-On! and proudly benefited the North Texas Food Bank. At the race, Run-On! owner Bob Wallace presented them with a check for $56,000 which was taken from the race proceeds. There were a record 6,397 registered runners signed up with 3,808 finishers (also a record). I guess that some of those that registered must have run without the chip time, or perhaps they just enjoyed the post race festivities, and watched the parade afterward. Speaking of the festivities, there were a large number of sponsors at the race including Central Market, Cooper Fitness Center, Community Coffee, My Fit Foods Dallas, Fuze, Muscle Milk, and Jerry Glover Photography. Check out some of his pictures of this race and last week's Madi Gras race on the Run-On! website, and his company site. If you raced in the event, you can type in your bib # in to see your pictures. The most popular sponsor was Gordon Birsch who served free beer. As always, I arrived early to find a parking spot then took a few laps around the Central Market and stretched to warm up. I then went over to the huge post race area and took a few pictures at the start / finish line. The closer it got to the 8:30 race start time the more crowded the fenced in area became; it was completely filled up with people. I made sure I was standing in front when they let people line up for the start of the race. I was fortunate enough to start 6 or 7 rows back. I ran this race last year, and until recently it was my best 5K race time at 26:01. I have lowered that time a bit recently thanks largely to Run-On!'s early speed development training that I started in January of this year. My coach, Dan Hagelberg, and a few others in our training group also ran in the race. Coach Dan told me to just run to have fun, and not to try to get a personal record at this event since so many runners would be crowding up, limiting the running room. But there is only one way I know how to run, and that's as fast as I can. I always try to do my best. So after we started, I took off fast. We went straight a few long blocks before turning right on this fast, flat course. My feet and hips have less pain now since I've lost more weight. I arrived at the 1 mile marker in 7:39. I just kept running hard, following the crowd in front of me. When I got to the 2 mile marker, my time was 15:33 (7:53 /m pace). I have never gotten to the 2 mile marker faster in any other race. There was a small hill to climb, but I had practiced running it at the 4 Run-On! social runs that I attended at Central Market, preparing for this race. I started to get tired about 2.5 miles into the race. Coach always says that you have more to give than you think and that it is supposed to be uncomfortable when you push yourself, so I just pushed on as hard as I could. Finally, there was just a long stretch to the finish line. This is where more experienced runners passed me up as I got tired, lost some of my running form, and didn't relax my breathing enough. At the 3 mile my time was 23:38 (8:05/m pace) and the last .1 mile in 57 seconds for a finishing time of 24:36. After stopping to catch my breath, I was surprised to see Coach Dan, and other Run-On! training members who are all faster than me, congratulate me at the finish line. Besides coach there was Laura Goodon (who finished in the fastest time of all of us at 22:57), Genevieve Moran, Courtney Lavey and later John Wrethrich, who is 65 years old and finished just 2 seconds shy of getting an award. Genevieve, Courtney and I went by the Run-On! tent and took a picture with some other lady. I also took a picture with Damaris (and her friends) who is one of the biggest supporters of my blog. She always answers back after a race report with some encouraging words. It means the world to me, as do all the other people who follow my blog and / or get email updates from me. I also took a picture with Diana Proud by Jerry Glover tent and another one with her and a friend at the Cooper Fitness Center tent. What an amazing lady; she also ran in the race, like last week. I try to inspire others to walk or run to better their health, but Diana is the one who inspires me to try to be better and always do my best. After the race I stayed to enjoy the parade down Greenville Avenue in front of the race area at Central Market. That night I went to the Dallas Mavericks game. They lost a close game to the Lakers. Last week's race was a little short so I don't count it as my personal best. So this is now my personal record 5K time at 24:36. Overall I finished 442 out of 3808 finishers. Place Bib # Overall Chip Time Gun Time Pace 11/42 235 442/3808 24:36 24:40 7:55 | |
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