Cool Runnings!

NTN Southwest Region Championships

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Location:

Mesa,AZ,

Member Since:

Mar 20, 2006

Gender:

Male

Goal Type:

Age Division Winner

Running Accomplishments:

Mile: 4:37 (HS)
2 Mile: 10:11 (HS)
10K: 35:52 (HS)
5K - 18:15 (ARR Summer Race Series #1 - 2008)
1/2 Marathon: 1:32:00 (St. George 2008 enroute)
Marathon: 3:10:56 (St. George 2008)

Short-Term Running Goals:

Get down to 155 lbs
Run sub 18:00 5K
Run sub 1:30 1/2 marathon
Run sub 3:00 marathon

Long-Term Running Goals:

~~qualify for Boston Marathon~~
run Boston Marathon
run sub-2:50 marathon
run sub-1:20 1/2 marathon
run sub-17:00 5K
beat my high school 10K time of 35:52

Personal:

I was married in 1997 to my beautiful wife Lybi (confessions of a piano teacher on the blog), and we have 3 wonderful boys who are just as active as I was when I was little (he he). I grew up in southeastern Michigan, and my family became members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when I was 6. I attended BYU, and served a mission in Berlin, Germany. After graduating from BYU with a degree in Health and Human Performance (pre-physical therapy), I promptly changed careers and started working with computers (although no programming for me). We have moved across the country several times, and currently live in Mesa, AZ. I work in computer security for a major nationwide homebuilder.

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Miles:	This week:	0.00	Month:	0.00	Year:	0.00
Saucony Grid C2 Flash Lifetime Miles:						148.66

Sat, Nov 17, 2007

Race: NTN Southwest Region Championships (3.11 Miles) 00:19:14

Easy Miles	Marathon Pace Miles	Threshold Miles	VO2 Max Miles	Trainer 1 Miles	Trainer 2 Miles	Racer Miles	Total Distance
7.00	1.00	3.11	0.00	0.00	0.00	11.11	11.11

AM - Ran the NTN Southwest Region Championships Citizen's 5K. Took off, and several people lit out ahead of me - obviously a fairly loaded race. I decided I would just run my race and not worry about placing. Legs felt a little rubbery, I was wondering if maybe my run last night had anything to do with that until I got to the first mile split and it was 5:50 on the nose. Breathing was already kind of hard, kept going as fast I could maintain. Second mile was around 6:20, as far as I know - I didn't bring my Garmin, and no one called out the two mile split, but there was a race clock that showed 12:10 when I ran by. Didn't get my 3rd mile split, had two tough hills to run up. Breathing was pretty ragged by now, and legs were pretty dead. Managed to collect myself after the last hill, didn't get passed by anyone, but didn't pass anyone else, either. Not sure of my place, but time (according to my watch) was 19:14, a 30 second PR (on a tough course!), average pace of 6:11/mile. This is probably about all I could expect from this course. On a flat road course, I feel certain I could have dropped another minute from my 5K time. However, a PR is a PR. Will run some slow easy miles this evening to hit 40 for the week again. BTW, for those of you who follow HS XC, Luke Puskedra destroyed the previous course record. He ran a 14:45 on the course, which averages to 4:45/mile. He broke the former course record by some 50 seconds. That kid is good - he has not lost a race yet.

PM - ran 8 easy miles. Felt pretty good, no real soreness from the race (I took a nice hot bath a couple hours after the race to loosen things up and get the blood flowing - that seemed to help). Took the Garmin with me. Makes me wish I had remembered to take it this morning so that I could get my splits. I also noticed that they did not post the results of the citizens 5K on the race website. Poo Poo. Glad I wore a watch to record my time. Averaged approximately 8:04/mile for the first 7 miles, then decided to pick it up for the last mile, ran MP for the last mile with a split of 6:59. Total time for the run was 1:03:02, average pace of 7:54/mile. It was nice and cool out, and I loved running, even though we have a lot of stuff yet to do tonight. We are flying out to Raleigh on Monday, and this is pretty much the only time we have to get our shopping done for the things we need for the trip.

Night Sleep Time: 0.00	Nap Time: 0.00	Total Sleep Time: 0.00	Weight: 0.00

Comments

From Tom on Sat, Nov 17, 2007 at 13:43:03

Great race James. You gotta always be pretty happy with a 30 sec PR, especially for a 5K

From Andy on Sat, Nov 17, 2007 at 13:51:11

Congrats on the PR on a tough course.

From Brent on Sat, Nov 17, 2007 at 14:04:25

James, wow, your hard training is really paying off, great PR on a tough course. Congrads.

From Lybi on Sat, Nov 17, 2007 at 17:23:49

Great job James! I was impressed with the hills on that course. Good job taking them in stride!

You forgot to mention that you met Abdi Abdirahman and that he told you "good job".

From James on Sat, Nov 17, 2007 at 18:34:57

Nice run. Any day you PR is a good day!

From Sasha Pachev on Sat, Nov 17, 2007 at 19:14:05

Congratulations on a PR. Can you make a map of the course on the Course Tool to see what those hills are worth? It will probable exaggerate their impact a bit since it is calibrated at Provo elevation. Unless you had something extreme like a steady 6% climb for half of the race, it is very difficult to make a 5 K with no net elevation gain that would slow you down by a minute at Phoenix elevation. So if there was a net gain, it is possible the hills could have added a minute. 20-30 seconds would be a more reasonable number otherwise. Nevertheless, this is excellent progress.

From Ian on Sun, Nov 18, 2007 at 01:45:57

Well done and congrats on the PR. I've never raced a 5k and you've made me interested enough to give it a go.

From Jeff on Sun, Nov 18, 2007 at 01:48:33

Good race today! Dang Puskedra is fast.

From Clay on Sun, Nov 18, 2007 at 11:21:09

Great job on the PR James, it sounds like it was a tough course. You are an inspiration to me, keep up the awesome work, and I agree Puskedra is faster than Hec!!! Wow!

From James W on Sun, Nov 18, 2007 at 13:24:13

OK, I created a map of the course, but it does NOT show the correct elevations, for some reason. It doesn't show any gain in elevation for the hills, except about 5 feet. I tried in gmap-pedometer as well, same thing. I can only guess that the topographic information is incorrect. I would still say that with the hills, and running on grass plus some muddy areas, total loss of time was up to a minute. My first mile was the fastest, and that was mostly packed dirt and asphalt road. Thanks everyone for their comments.

From Sasha Pachev on Mon, Nov 19, 2007 at 17:56:26

How long were the hills? 5 feet gain over 100 meters is about a 2% grade, and that will look like a hill. Over 30 meters it is about 6% grade and it does look like a very nasty hill. From the satellite view, it appears like you would have had a bunch of short nasty little hills. Looking at the results, even with the effects of this being a cross-country course, I still highly doubt you would lose a minute on it compared to a road course. If you did, then we have two high schoolers in the Southwest region alone that can run sub-14:00 5 K on the roads, plus 11 more under 14:50. That sounds a bit exaggerated. I would say about 30 seconds difference.

From josse on Mon, Nov 19, 2007 at 18:14:29

Great job on the PR. I would love a low 19 on a 5k.

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