Thursday, July 06, 2006

NEWSFLASH - Week 3 update

Finally, the official results have been posted and the news is in. [drum roll, please]. You are reading the blog of the 2006 Lemont Freedom 10k Run – Men’s Age 30-34 Division Champion!

Just found the results board today. I found this pretty comical considering I finished in 21st place overall out of 121 men and 58 women. Apparently the M 30-34 bracket was a bit soft this year. Who will challenge me next year as I prepare to defend my crown??? (OK, enough, but this is the first time that I have accomplished this).


Interestingly, of the 20 people that finished ahead of me (all men), TEN of them were age 40 or older. Special kudos to Thomas Gaudette, age 52, who ran a 41:25 10k under some hot, humid and hilly conditions. Rock on! Does this mean we get faster as we get older? If yes, then why I am killing myself to BQ now, when the qualifying times go up when I age?!

OK, big deal, time to forget the flippin' 10k and concentrate on the real goal.

Wed 7/5 – Recovery 4-miler

7:08 AM - Boy, did it feel good go slow after the Tuesday’s 10k race. My target recovery pace is 8:53. I trotted through these 4 miles at an avg of 8:49 per mile. Real easy.

Thu 7/6 – General aerobic 10-mile

6:14 AM - Today’s run went as planned. I decided that I would try to pick a pace that I knew I would give me a workout without overdoing it. The target pace was 7:50 which seemed like a good middle-of-the road between my recovery pace and my goal marathon pace of 7:15. I think I was still a little depleted from Tuesday’s run, so the run was moderately challenging toward the end. Here are the splits from today:

7:54
7:50
7:49
7:49
7:52
7:38
7:41
7:44
7:37
7:24

Conditions: Beautifully cool and very sunny
Total time: 1:17:21
Avg HR: 154 – 81% of max HR
Sleep: 7.5 hours – not too bad

Week-to-date progress: approx 21.7 miles – 18 to go

Remaining days this week

Fri – X-Train – Core strength training / Abs
Sat – Run 14 long
Sun – Recovery 4 miles (optional) as I prepare to pull up the plan by 1 day

8 comments:

Arcane said...

Nice racing! I'm under 35 and would like to BQ before a hit 35. I think there's something extra special about saying that I was able to meet the toughest qualifying time. I suppose you could do sub 3:10 after you turn 35 and basically acheive the same effect, but for me I think that a part of me would say, "well i only have to break 3:15 so that's what I'll aim for".

MNFirefly said...

Awesome run! Congrads!

Unknown said...

You gotta take those age division crowns when you can get em. I was 2nd in my age division and the guy who beat me was a fellow Fleet Feet teamate. I am already trying to talk him in to running an 8K in August so I can try to get my revenge, but I'm not really competitive. I would consider myself a friendly competitor who wants to see everyone run their best. You'll probably see some more short stuff mixed in from me, but kind of as I feel like doing them.

Nice job on sticking with the program and it looks like you're progressing nicely.

Triseverance said...

Way to go champ and those are some impressive spits and a really nice HR. You will likely want to kick me for saying this but looks like a BQ is in the bag.

Chad said...

Congrats on the age group win.

"Does this mean we get faster as we get older?"

I'd say it depends on your running history. If you're relatively new to the sport and in your 40s, then you can continue to improve for awhile.

If you've been running in your 20s and 30s, I don't think you'll continue to improve in your 40s and 50s. You'd have to really ramp up your training in order to make that happen.

Iron Jayhawk said...

oh my gosh! CONGRATS!! This is so exciting, Ryan :)

A BQ is definitely in your reach.

SRR said...

WOW! Can I have your autograph please? :-)

Greg said...

Congrats on what I hope is the first of many first-place races.