Candy Cane 5k – Close, but no PR

To quote the great patriot, Maxwell Smart:

“Missed it . . . by THAT much.”

My official time was 23:24, 17 seconds shy of my PR. The official time for this race was the gun time so a comparable chip time would have been a few seconds faster, but I was lined up fairly close to the start line.

On the positive side – I set a new record for one mile with the first split of the race – 7:16, only to beat it again with the second mile – 7:14.

Oh, and then there is also the small matter of this:

My first age group award! 3rd Place in the 40-44 age division.

I placed 61st overall out of 404 runners with an average pace of 7:33.

So, what could I have changed to improve that time and PR the race. It seems I’m full of excuses.

1.  I didn’t plan to eat or rest well the day before the race. I spent the evening stressed out driving all over town and ate a fast food dinner in my car way too late in the evening.

2.  I didn’t even get in five hours of sleep.

3.  I didn’t get to the race early enough to give myself enough time to properly warm up before the race.

4.  I didn’t familiarize myself with the route and was surprised by a bridge crossing at the 2 mile mark. I wrongly assumed it would be the same course that I ran in a 5k earlier this year because it started at the same place. Even worse, there was a turn around at the bottom of the bridge so there was no time to recover before having to cross it a second time. The two bridge crossings left me spent for the final leg of the race and my pace for the last 1.1 miles slowed to 8:05.

On a flat course with true chip timing, I’m confident I would have PR’d and I would have been damn close to that 7:00 mile I’m hunting.

Front Running Sports did a great job organizing the event.  Despite my whining about the bridge it was a nice route that followed the Cross Seminole Trail through Winter Springs.  They somehow even managed to arrange for the rain to hold off until after the race was over.

I owe many thanks to my daughter, Tori and to Rick from WVR who were able to capture some great photographs and even better, rare video of the elusive Running Bird crossing the finish line (I'll try to embed it here if I can figure out how).  Also congratulations to the other WVR members that gave a strong showing at the race:  Mike (3rd in Age group with 19:59) , Luis, Elizabeth (PR'd), Sandy (PR'd while running with a debilitating injury ;-} ), Claire and Walter.

Today I think I’m suffering from a minor case of DOMS. I didn’t do anything to aid recovery after the race and I think I’m suffering the aftereffects. I need to learn not to take these short races for granted.